Authorities in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the spread of the coronavirus began, initially tried to downplay the spread of the infection. This was stated by senior medical adviser to the Chinese government Zhong Nanshan in an interview with CNN published on May 17.
The specialist claims that he arrived in Wuhan on January 18 and immediately received many messages from local doctors that the real situation is significantly different from the official data.
He had similar suspicions after the number of detected cases remained unchanged for 10 days, although COVID-19 had already begun to spread outside the PRC.
Two days later, on Chinese television, he said that the coronavirus is transmitted from person to persoN, a fact that the Wuhan authorities have long denied. On the same day, the expert suggested closing the borders of Wuhan.
“The local authorities at that time did not want to tell the truth. At the very beginning of the situation, they remained silent, and then I said about the likelihood of more cases, ” Zhong Nanshan said.
At the same time, he stressed that the real data were hidden only at the initial stage of the spread of the coronavirus. After the situation was taken under control by the Central government, that is, since January 23, accurate data were provided, the expert assured. In addition, he refuted assumptions about the artificial origin of the coronavirus in the laboratory of Wuhan.
China has been repeatedly accused in the US of concealing the real scale of the outbreak. Us leader Donald trump claimed to have information about the creation of SARS-CoV-2 in the laboratory of Wuhan, and US Secretary of state Mike Pompeo said that Washington has “huge evidence” of the artificial origin of the coronavirus.
Earlier in May, trump allowed the complete termination of relations with the Chinese due to the situation with COVID-19. Options for possible punishment or obtaining financial compensation from the PRC are being discussed in the us presidential administration.
An outbreak of COVID-19, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, occurred in Chinese City of Wuhan, in late December. Outside of China, the disease has been diagnosed in patients in more than 210 countries. On March 11, the world health organization (who) declared a coronavirus pandemic in the world. According to Worldometer on May 17, more than 4.7 million COVID-19 cases were detected worldwide, and 313,000 people died.
