The current epidemic in China is not over and has now entered a new phase, the chief epidemiologist at China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on April 2, representing a rare contradiction to Beijing’s official narrative that the virus has been contained.
Zeng Guang told Chinese state-run newspaper Health Times that the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus is likely to infect more people.
“The novel coronavirus has spread to more than 200 countries, and infected much more people than SARS [severe acute respiratory syndrome]. In the end, the virus may infect more than 100 times the number of people during SARS,” he said.
SARS was first discovered in China’s Guangdong province in 2002, and then spread to Hong Kong and other cities after Chinese authorities concealed information about the outbreak. The official global death toll is about 800, but the true figure is likely much higher due to China’s coverup.
Zeng said the epidemic in China is still severe.
“Now is the phase to prevent infected people from entering China, and to control new domestic infections,” Zeng said. “[We should] maintain our capacity to find patients at an early stage, control the outbreak when it first starts, and prevent the next big outbreak.”
On April 2, Beijing authorities claimed that there were no domestic infections and 35 imported cases. However, Chinese citizens are incredulous about the figures, based on interviews with The Epoch Times.
A man wearing a protective suit rides a bicycle on a street in Wuhan, China on April 1, 2020. HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP via Getty Images
Contradictory Comments
After initially dismissing concerns about asymptomatic carriers spreading the virus further, Beijing regime started announcing the total number of asymptomatic carriers—people who test positive for the virus but don’t show symptoms—on April 1.
The following day, Wu Zunyou, a chief epidemic disease specialist at China’s CDC, said a central-government-operated press conference: “There’s a small possibility that asymptomatic carriers will cause an outbreak [in China]. The asymptomatic carriers won’t spread the virus in society.”
Wu claimed that a study performed in Ningbo of eastern China’s Zhejiang province showed that “each asymptomatic carrier can only infect less than one person.”
State-run media Yicai also reported about the Ningbo study, which has since been removed from its original publication website. The media report quoted researchers from Ningbo who said: “From a statistical perspective, the infection rate [between diagnosed CCP virus patients and asymptomatic carriers] has no significant difference.”
On March 31, China’s National Health Commission also acknowledged the risks of asymptomatic carriers in a Q&A post on its website: “There are diagnosed patients who were infected by asymptomatic carriers in our national research and some provinces’ studies. During an epidemiological investigation, we found asymptomatic carriers caused clusters of infections.”
A passenger shows a green QR code on his phone to show his health status to security upon arrival at Wenzhou railway station in Wenzhou, Zhejiang on February 28, 2020. NOEL CELIS/AFP via Getty Images
The reality on the ground also reflected how asymptomatic carriers could infect others.
On March 31, Jia county in Henan province enacted a lockdown again, after three doctors were diagnosed as asymptomatic carriers. The county government didn’t publicize how many people were infected by them, but a woman from Luohe city, also in Henan, was infected after she was in close contact with one of the asymptomatic carriers in Jia county for a day. The county’s quarantine measures were lifted in late February.
The Epoch Times refers to the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19, as the CCP virus because the Chinese Communist Party’s coverup and mismanagement allowed the virus to spread throughout China and create a global pandemic.
Nicole Hao
Author
Nicole Hao is a Washington-based reporter focused on China-related topics. Before joining the Epoch Media Group in July 2009, she worked as a global product manager for a railway business in Paris, France.
