Coronavirus pandemic 'could be over by June' if countries act, says Chinese adviser

By Kevin Yao and Min Zhang

 

A woman wearing a protective mask is seen past a portrait of Chinese President Xi Jinping on a street as the country is hit by an outbreak of the coronavirus, in Shanghai, China March 12, 2020. REUTERS/Aly Song

 

BEIJING (Reuters) - The global coronavirus pandemic could be over by June if countries mobilise to fight it, a senior Chinese medical adviser said on Thursday, as China declared the peak had passed there and new cases in Hubei fell to single digits for the first time.

 

Around two-thirds of global cases of the coronavirus have been recorded in China's central Hubei province, where the virus first emerged in December. But in recent weeks the vast majority of new cases have been outside China.

 

Chinese authorities credit strict measures they have taken, including placing Hubei under near total lockdown, with preventing big outbreaks in other cities, and say other countries should learn from their efforts.

 

"Broadly speaking, the peak of the epidemic has passed for China," said Mi Feng, a spokesman for the National Health Commission. "The increase of new cases is falling."

 

Zhong Nanshan, the government's senior medical adviser, told reporters that as long as countries take the outbreak seriously and are prepared to take firm measures, it could be over worldwide in a matter of months.

 

"My advice is calling for all countries to follow WHO instructions and intervene on a national scale," he said. "If all countries could get mobilised, it could be over by June."

 

Speaking to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, President Xi Jinping similarly expressed confidence, state television reported.

 

"After hard work, China has shown a trend of continuous improvement in epidemic prevention and control," the report cited Xi as saying.

 

"I am confident that the Chinese people will be able to overcome this epidemic and achieve their intended economic and social development goals."

 

Zhong, an 83-year-old epidemiologist renowned for helping combat the SARS outbreak in 2003, said viruses in the same family typically became less active in warm months.

 

"My estimate of June is based on scenarios that all countries take positive measures."

 

Later on Thursday, Zhong held a teleconference with a group of U.S. medical experts, including from Harvard University, state television reported.

 

Zhong and his team shared their experiences of quickly testing and containing the virus, difficulties in treatment, and cooperation in clinical research, the report added.

 

The United States is now facing its own virus crisis as the number of infected people rises.

 

BUSINESSES REOPEN

With the marked slowdown of the spread of the virus in China, more businesses have reopened, with authorities cautiously easing strict containment measures.

 

Hubei province announced a further loosening of travel restrictions and will also allow some industries to resume production.

 

Hubei's economy, driven by manufacturing and trade, including a sizable auto sector in the provincial capital, Wuhan, had been virtually shut down since Jan. 23.

 

While the virus is spreading quickly globally, its progress in China has slowed markedly in the past seven days. In all, 15 new cases were recorded in mainland China on Wednesday, down from 24 the day before. Seven of the new cases were outside Hubei, including six imported from abroad.

 

While only 85 of the cases in China have come from abroad, the rising number of such incidences has prompted authorities to shift their focus on containing the risk of imported cases.

 

The total number of cases recorded in mainland China was 80,793. As of Tuesday, 62,793 people had recovered and been discharged from hospital, or nearly 80% of the infections.

 

In Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak, 34,094 patients had been discharged from hospitals, but over half were still under observation at so-called "recovery stops" - quarantine venues repurposed from hotels and student dormitories.

 

Hubei's health authority said the post-discharge quarantine was a precautionary measure, after a few discharged patients tested positive again.

 

As of the end of Wednesday, the death toll in mainland China had reached 3,169, up by 11 from the previous day. Hubei accounted for 10 of the new deaths, including seven in Wuhan.

 

China is focusing on restarting factories and businesses hit by the containment policies. Factory activity plunged to its worst level on record in February, and while more businesses have reopened in recent weeks as containment measures have been eased, analysts do not expect activity to return to normal until April.

 

Airlines have been hit particularly hard. China's airlines reported total losses of 20.96 billion yuan ($3 billion) in February. The total number of airline passengers fell 84.5% year-on-year last month, China's aviation regulator said.

 

($1 = 6.98 yuan)

 

(Reporting by Ryan Woo, Se Young Lee, Lusha Zhang, Stella Qiu, David Stanway, Cate Cadell, Gao Liangping, Engen Tham, Judy Hua and Kevin Yao; Editing by Michael Perry, Robert Birsel, Toby Chopra and Nick Macfie)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-03-13

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Could have been over by February if China had acted straight away !!!

Hypocritical <deleted> s ????

Ah, a 'chinese adviser' the oracles have spoken... how about advising your people, the very same people who brought all of this on the world...

Great plan

Sink markets

Buy up big

Wait for recovery

 

 

They wanna sell fortune cookies again.

The Chinese statement simply does not make sense.

 

The virus is still present and is still highly infectious and there is no natural immunity in billions of people who have not (yet) been infected.

 

Perhaps the Chinese wish us to believe the virus has suddenly died out.

 

Or perhaps they have a means to make infections disappear.

China is the last country in the world to give advice and should hang its head in shame.

Ive got a hankering for some bat soup. 

 

1 hour ago, Chomper Higgot said:

The Chinese statement simply does not make sense.

 

The virus is still present and is still highly infectious and there is no natural immunity in billions of people who have not (yet) been infected.

 

Perhaps the Chinese wish us to believe the virus has suddenly died out.

 

Or perhaps they have a means to make infections disappear.

Anyone not old, ailing or sick will have natural immunity - this is no worse than a bad cold !! Flu is still outranking Corona by a landslide! 

 

How many fit people have died from this ? 

2 hours ago, webfact said:

as long as countries take the outbreak seriously and are prepared to take firm measures

 

And there is the answer as why the covid-19 exists and what the exercise is all about.

 

Controlling the masses.

1 minute ago, Bruntoid said:

Anyone not old, ailing or sick will have natural immunity - this is no worse than a bad cold !! Flu is still outranking Corona by a landslide! 

 

How many fit people have died from this ? 

Hogwash gaslighting.

 

This is not a cold or a flue.

 

Nobody has a ‘natural immunity’ to a virus they have not yet encountered, if/when they do catch the disease their immune system will attempt to combat the virus, either the individual’s immune system or the virus will win.

 

People of all ages have been killed by this virus.

3 minutes ago, Susco said:

 

And there is the answer as why the covid-19 exists and what the exercise is all about.

 

Controlling the masses.

The conspiracy nonsense is here already.

I do believe it will be controlled by June in most countries but it definitely won't be over until there is a vaccine.

 

Virus definitely don't die as far as I read. They can flare up again.

8 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

Hogwash gaslighting.

 

This is not a cold or a flue.

 

Nobody has a ‘natural immunity’ to a virus they have not yet encountered, if/when they do catch the disease their immune system will attempt to combat the virus, either the individual’s immune system or the virus will win.

 

People of all ages have been killed by this virus.

They have but 85% were over 60, and most of the remainder had compromised immune systems. However arguing about the nuts and bolts doesn't take away from the overall impact.

 

Neither does allocating blame. Fascinating to see how various governments/people are reacting at the moment.

But I've got a 20 yr supply of dunny roll

Edited March 13, 20206 yr by Thechook

Cutting through the sarcasm and scepticism of believing the CCP, it has been shown that containment is effective.  Having brutal quarantine measures works.  Democratic countries need to adhere to human rights that slow containment processes.  But self preservation fears usually mobilize populations to comply. 

When it's all said and done, the world will be very closely looking at what Xi Jinping does about wet markets with wild and illegal game and how to stop this happening again.  Keeping and eating unregulated animals known to be high risk zoonotic pathogen carriers needs to be banned immediately.  Chinese no longer has the famines that caused CCP to allow wild game markets in the first place.  But now wet market trades produce huge GDP to the government.  That needs de-coupling along with the corruption linked to it all. 

 

Edited March 13, 20206 yr by aussienam

5 hours ago, Bruntoid said:

Anyone not old, ailing or sick will have natural immunity - this is no worse than a bad cold !! Flu is still outranking Corona by a landslide! 

 

How many fit people have died from this ? 

Completely ignorant ????

5 hours ago, Chomper Higgot said:

Nobody has a ‘natural immunity’ to a virus they have not yet encountered, if/when they do catch the disease their immune system will attempt to combat the virus, either the individual’s immune system or the virus will win.

They don't even know if recovering gives immunity and if so, for how long. This'll be a seasonal pest for sure.

24 minutes ago, aussienam said:

Cutting through the sarcasm and scepticism of believing the CCP, it has been shown that containment is effective.  Having brutal quarantine measures works.

It works until you hit a time limit and the basics start to fail, such as food, water, electricity and so on. It's only been a couple of months and the financials are taking a beating too.

Their Wuhan virus has infected the world, and taken financial markets down dramatically.  And yet no apology, no mea culpa.  And they’ve lost all respect and believability in the western world.  

the Chinese are poised to make a killing (ptp) off of this, manufacturing necessary health goods/meds alone will be very good business. 

nothing has been shown.  There may be millions with the virus who haven't been tested.  Now they say the state of Ohio in America might have 100,000 cases alone.  You guys want to believe it's getting better, OK.  But this really isn't factual.  Nobody knows.  Let's not act like NOW China is being transparent with us....this involves a zillion dollars, so people lie.

 

My crazy gut feeling says this will be over maybe around November, or the first few months of next year.  I think this is going to get way more crazy.  

9 hours ago, webfact said:

BUSINESSES REOPEN

With the marked slowdown of the spread of the virus in China, more businesses have reopened, with authorities cautiously easing strict containment measures.

 

Hubei province announced a further loosening of travel restrictions and will also allow some industries to resume production.

 

Hubei's economy, driven by manufacturing and trade, including a sizable auto sector in the provincial capital, Wuhan, had been virtually shut down since Jan. 23.

This virus it's a very bad thing for a lot of people but it could be also a very good thing for a lot of business operators, such as multi nationals as they will have to re-think and adjust their supply chains in order to avoid being in the same situation (100% depending on China supplying) with any similar/potential future situation. The majority if not all of medical supplies to produce medication in nearby countries comes from China, (hear India produces a lot of medication unfortunately they had to slow/stop production as they depend on China supplying the powders) the US and Europe in very similar situations, countries and companies have to open their eyes now and not begging China to start manufacturing thus giving China the power to control thus who depend on them...

 

for those who may be interested in reading about globalization Pros and Cons

https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikecollins/2015/05/06/the-pros-and-cons-of-globalization/#3c36f7accce0

Edited March 13, 20206 yr by Mavideol
additional info

30 minutes ago, Isaan sailor said:

Their Wuhan virus has infected the world, and taken financial markets down dramatically.  And yet no apology, no mea culpa.  And they’ve lost all respect and believability in the western world.  

You don't like China or the Chinese, do you IS.

Edited March 13, 20206 yr by saengd

When this is all over...there needs to be a stringent accounting demanded

of China by the rest of the world...no matter what it costs in terms

of loss of their business....this country is run by rotten human beings.

Countries are acting.

They are acting to clean up the terrible Virus that China unleashed upon the whole World.

And not for the first time have Governments around the World had to react to the various Viral threats that have emerged from the Chinese Wet Markets.

To make this statement is totally irresponsible, as the Virus may well rebound around the Globe several times before becoming "safe ".

 

19 minutes ago, Isaan sailor said:

Their Wuhan virus has infected the world, and taken financial markets down dramatically.  And yet no apology, no mea culpa.  And they’ve lost all respect and believability in the western world.  

.... but they may disagree with you as they have a very different opinion about the way & place where the virus started. The blaming game keeps coming, China blames the US and the US blames China....

 

https://qz.com/1817736/china-fuels-coronavirus-conspiracy-theory-blaming-us-army/?utm_source=YPL&yptr=yahoo

UNDIPLOMATIC SPEAK

A conspiracy theory linking the US army to the coronavirus now has official Chinese endorsement

23 minutes ago, Isaan sailor said:

Their Wuhan virus has infected the world, and taken financial markets down dramatically.  And yet no apology, no mea culpa.  And they’ve lost all respect and believability in the western world.  

I don't think they did had any believability/credibility in the western world for quite some time, it was merely a "close your eyes" and make money from their cheap products but don't over step any boundaries (not criticize the humans rights abuse, don't speak or take position in HK or Taiwan territories, no comments on South China Sea, let them built and assimilate Vietnam/Philippines islands, etc., etc.) or they will stop supplying you.

 

 

 

9 minutes ago, JHolmesJr said:

When this is all over...there needs to be a stringent accounting demanded

of China by the rest of the world...no matter what it costs in terms

of loss of their business....this country is run by rotten human beings.

But but they buy all your US debts and enable the dollar to remain strong. US need China and soon China will be the largest economic power. 

Just now, Eric Loh said:

But but they buy all your US debts and enable the dollar to remain strong. US need China and soon China will be the largest economic power. 

 

seems like you need some testing yourself....take care and get some fluids. ????