WHO Director-General Tedros Again Praises China’s Measures To Contain Virus Crisis

Feb. 5, 2020 (EIRNS)—World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus spoke to a technical meeting held yesterday in Geneva on the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) crisis, and stated: “There is a window of opportunity because of the high measures, the strong measures China is taking at the epicenter, at the source. So let’s use this opportunity to prevent further spread and control it.”

Also speaking yesterday, an official of China’s National Health Commission (NHC) gave a status report at a press conference in Beijing, presenting a cautiously optimistic picture based on the government’s all-out mobilization to contain the spread of the disease. According to Xinhua, NHC official Jiao Yahui urged people not to panic and reported that “the majority of coronavirus patients in the country only suffer from mild symptoms and the average hospital stay is no longer than 20 days.” She also said that the fatality rate is dropping, as is the daily number of patients accepted in fever outpatient clinics.

The Xinhua account continued: “The NHC also announced Tuesday that the case fatality rate (CFR) of the novel coronavirus-related pneumonia had seen a decrease. The CFR of the coronavirus infection on the Chinese mainland has dropped from an initial 2.3% at the beginning of the outbreak to the current 2.1%, according to the NHC. Hubei Province, the epicenter of the epidemic, has seen a majority of the deaths. The province has a death toll of 414, over 97% of the total, and its CFR was as high as 3.1%, the NHC official said. Currently, more than 80% of the deaths were elderly people over 60 years old and over 75% had at least one underlying disease such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and tumors, Jiao said.”

She further stated that a total of 15,000 fever outpatient clinics have been set up across the mainland, and that “the comprehensive treatment for the epidemic is gradually taking effect.”