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China CDC chief defends early outbreak action: ‘I never said there was no human-to-human transmission’
- George Gao Fu says medical team concluded ‘very efficient’ transmission between people as soon as it visited Wuhan
- TV interview comes amid allegations of secrecy and cover-up in China
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A senior official in China’s fight against Covid-19 has told a television interview he had never claimed there was no human-to-human transmission of the new coronavirus.
“No, I never said [there’s] no human-to-human transmission in the public – never, ever,” George Gao Fu, director of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, told state media China Global Television Network in the interview aired on Monday.
“Even from the very beginning, I don’t think it’s good [to] put any scientists in a position to say there's no human-to-human transmission because these viruses are unknown,” Gao said.
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The Covid-19 virus has infected more than 83,000 people in China and killed more than 4,600 since the outbreak began, according to China’s National Health Commission (NHC).
His comment comes after there was confusion early in the outbreak about whether there was a risk of sustained human-to-human transmission and criticism in January that Chinese health authorities had withheld important information about the new virus.
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On January 15, Wuhan’s health commission said that “although significant evidence confirming human-to-human transmission has yet to be found, the possibility of limited human-to-human transmission cannot be ruled out”.
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