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Tag: China

  • Broken seals at Wuhan lab holding 1,500 different strains of virus, including bat coronavirus

    Broken seals at Wuhan lab holding 1,500 different strains of virus, including bat coronavirus

    In a rare glimpse inside a Chinese laboratory in Wuhan amid global suspicions about the COVID-19 pandemic, scenes from the “secretive” Institute of Virology have sent shockwaves over the internet.

    According to Mail Online, pictures from inside the laboratory show a broken seal on the door of one of the refrigerators used to hold 1,500 different strains of virus, including the bat coronavirus that has jumped to humans with over 2.4 million infections and over 165,000 deaths since the first case in November last year.

    The pictures, first released by a state-owned Chinese newspaper in 2018, were also published on Twitter last month, before being deleted.

    Meanwhile, according to New York Post, the director of the lab denies that the bug accidentally spread from his facility.

    “There’s no way this virus came from us,” Yuan Zhiming, director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, told state media.

    Yuan admitted that the lab is studying “different areas related to the coronavirus,” but told the English-language state broadcaster CGTN that none of his staff has been infected.

    “As people who carry out viral studies we clearly know what kind of research is going on at the institute and how the institute manages viruses and samples,” he said.

    He said that since the lab is in Wuhan “people can’t help but make associations”, but claimed that some media outlets are “deliberately trying to mislead people”.

    But officials in the past have raised concerns over the safety conditions of the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

    In March 2018, US science diplomats dispatched to the lab issued two “sensitive” diplomatic cables about inadequate safety measures at the lab, the Washington Post reported, citing intelligence sources.

    The first cable warned the experiments conducted in the lab on coronavirus in bats “represented a risk of a new SARS-like pandemic,” according to the report.

    The cable, written by two US-China embassy officials, said there is a “serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate this high-containment laboratory,” according to the report.

  • ‘China let coronavirus become a pandemic’

    ‘China let coronavirus become a pandemic’

    Top officials of the Chinese government by January 14 knew that the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan could snowball into a pandemic, yet they kept the world in dark from the unfolding catastrophe for the next six days, The Associated Press (AP) has reported on the basis of retrospective infection data.

    The report cited Chinese media and claimed there was enough data to prove that COVID-19 was spreading person-to-person as people who had never been to Wuhan’s animal market contracted the disease as early as December, yet the Chinese government hid the fact from the public and the World Health Organisation (WHO).

    President Xi Jinping warned the public on the seventh day — January 20 — but by that time, more than 3,000 people had been infected during almost a week of public silence internal documents revealed.

    That delay from January 14 to January 20 was neither the first mistake made by Chinese officials at all levels in confronting the outbreak, nor the longest lag, as governments around the world have dragged their feet for weeks and even months in addressing the virus.

    But the delay by the first country to face the new coronavirus came at a critical time — the beginning of the outbreak. China’s attempt to walk a line between alerting the public and avoiding panic set the stage for a pandemic that has infected more than 2.1 million people and taken more than 147,000 lives.

    Zuo-Feng Zhang, an epidemiologist at the University of California, has said that had they taken action six days earlier, there would have been much fewer patients and medical facilities would have been sufficient. “We might have avoided the collapse of Wuhan’s medical system.”

    Moreover, the Chinese Center for Disease Control had stopped registering any cases from Wuhan’s local hospitals from January 5 to 17. However, thousands of patients were admitted to hospitals not just in Wuhan but all over China during that period.

    It is understood that doctors in local hospitals feared that they might receive the same punishment for rumor-mongering as the eight doctors, including Dr Li Wenliang, who tried to alert the public before any official authorities.

    It’s uncertain whether it was local officials who failed to report cases or national officials who failed to record them. It’s also not clear exactly what officials knew at the time in Wuhan, which only opened back up last week with restrictions after its quarantine.

    But what is clear, experts say, is that China’s rigid controls on information, bureaucratic hurdles and a reluctance to send bad news up the chain of command muffled early warnings.

  • China declares dogs should be treated as pets not livestock

    China declares dogs should be treated as pets not livestock

    For the first time in history, China has declared that dogs should be treated like pets, not livestock.

    The announcement comes after the Chinese government imposed a ban on the eating and trade of wild animals in response to the novel coronavirus. Chinese researchers believe that the disease originated from the animal markets in Wuhan.

    “With the progress of human civilisation and the public’s concern and preference for animal protection, dogs have changed from traditional domestic animals to companion animals,” China’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said.

    It added that dogs are treated as pets and not meat across the world and China should do so as well.

    According to Humane Society International, around 10 million dogs are killed in the country annually,  The meat, however, is only consumed by 20% of the country’s population.

    The move comes as hope for animal lovers and indicates  an end to the torture of animals and their meat trade.

  • Doctors worldwide are dancing as coronavirus patients recover

    As doctors and other healthcare workers continue to fight against COVID-19 on the frontlines and are treating patients around the world, they are also keeping the spirits high amid all coronavirus panic and fear. Doctors across the world are dancing to celebrate the recovery of their patients.

    Here a few video clips from different countries that will lighten your mood at least for some time.

    They are not only dancing, but people from different professions also applauding each other for their services in this difficult time.

  • Italy gave China protective equipment to help with coronavirus, then China made them buy it back: report

    Italy gave China protective equipment to help with coronavirus, then China made them buy it back: report

    At the peak of the COVID-19 outbreak in China, Italy had donated personal protection equipment (PPE) to Beijing and now when Rome is in dire need of the same, China is making them buy it back, a report in The Spectator has claimed.

    According to reports, after the new coronavirus made its way to Italy, decimating the country’s significant elderly population, China told the world it would donate PPE to help Italy stop its spread.

    Reports later indicated that China had actually sold, not donated, the PPE to Italy. A senior Trump administration official told The Spectator that it was much worse than that as “Beijing forced Italy to buy back the supply that it gave to China during the initial outbreak”.

    “Before the virus hit Europe, Italy sent tons of PPE to China to help China protect its own population,” the administration official explained.

    “China then has sent Italian PPE back to Italy — some of it, not even all of it… and charged them for it,” he added.

    Unfortunately, China’s diplomacy in the wake of the pandemic outbreak has been slippery.

    Much of the supplies and testing kits that China sold to other countries have turned out to be defective.

    Spain had to return 50,000 quick-testing kits to China after discovering that they were faulty.

    In some cases, instead of apologising or fixing the issue, China has blamed others for the defective equipment. It reportedly told the Netherlands to “double-check the instructions” on its masks, after the country had complained that half of the masks did not meet safety standards.

    “China has a special responsibility to help because they are the ones who began the spread of the coronavirus and did not give the information required to the rest of the world to plan accordingly,” the official said, adding that China’s “disinformation campaign” of lying to the world about the seriousness of its COVID-19 outbreak further delayed the response by other countries.

  • Coronavirus: Info Ministry shares fake news about Chinese help, then deletes tweet

    Coronavirus: Info Ministry shares fake news about Chinese help, then deletes tweet

    In a rather embarrassing development for the government, the Information Ministry has shared fake claims regarding Chinese help for Pakistan amid the outbreak of the new coronavirus — COVID-19 — and later deleted its tweet.

    As per the details, the Information Ministry, which is responsible to release government information to the public and international communities, on Sunday in a now-deleted tweet claimed that 200 Chinese doctors had reached Islamabad to help the country fight the coronavirus pandemic.

    It also said that China was providing Pakistan with $34 million for treatment of the infected.

    The same was tweeted by Radio Pakistan as well.

    Since the the national public broadcaster for radio also deleted its tweet, an archived version of it can be viewed here.

    Speaking to The Current, an official, on the condition of anonymity, confirmed not only that the two claims were fake, but also that the tweets had been deleted after it was pointed out.

    They, however, said that China had given Pakistan $4 million in aid and the claim pertaining to the provision of 300,000 medical face masks besides 10 ventilators was also true.

    This was confirmed by Economic Affairs Minister Hammad Azhar as well.

    Taking to Twitter, he wrote:

    “They have also undertaken to arrange for much greater number of ventilators,” the minister added.

  • ‘China manipulated number of COVID-19 infections for president’s visit’

    ‘China manipulated number of COVID-19 infections for president’s visit’

    The number of novel coronavirus patients in Wuhan, the epicenter of China’s virus outbreak, was manipulated in time for President Xi Jinping’s visit last week, a local doctor was quoted as saying by Tokyo-based Kyodo News.

    According to the Japanese media outlet, a number of symptomatic patients were abruptly released from quarantine early while a portion of testing was suspended.

    China’s health authorities had last Thursday reported no new cases of coronavirus in Wuhan, marking the first time for the city to have no instances of local transmission since the viral epidemic began late last year.

    But the doctor, who works at a quarantine facility, said the government tally “cannot be trusted.”

    The number of patients currently undergoing treatment is deliberately being reduced in an effort to show the Xi government’s success in combatting the epidemic, he said.

    The doctor, whose responsibilities include determining whether a patient is discharged from a hospital, expressed strong concerns that if the truth remains hidden from the public, another outbreak could occur.

    Guidelines from the National Health Commission stipulate that patients must test negative for the virus twice and be cleared for pneumonia via a computerised tomography — imaging through X-rays or ultrasound — scan before being discharged.

    But according to the doctor, from around the time of Xi’s visit, even though his patients still exhibited signs of pneumonia, the patients were released from quarantine at the discretion of a “specialist” from the epidemic prevention and control authority.

    From then on, the criteria for discharging patients became loose, and “a mass release of infected patients began,” he said.

    Also, patient interviews with those exhibiting symptoms such as fever were simplified, and blood tests to detect antibodies produced during infection were discontinued. As a result, “suspected patients were released back into society,” he said.

    Xi, on March 10, made his first visit to the central Chinese city of Wuhan since the outbreak began, emphasizing the government’s achievements in its epidemic prevention and control efforts.

    According to the National Health Commission, nearly 58,000 people have been discharged from hospitals in Hubei Province, where Wuhan is the capital. Beginning in mid-March, the number of new infections in Wuhan has stayed below a dozen patients a day.

  • VIDEO: President wants a ‘volunteer force’ to fight coronavirus in Pakistan

    VIDEO: President wants a ‘volunteer force’ to fight coronavirus in Pakistan

    Urging the nation to show unity in the persisting difficult time, President Dr Arif Alvi has stressed the need to form a China-like volunteer force in Pakistan to fight the new coronavirus.

    President Alvi, in a video message, said China has fought the coronavirus pandemic on the national-level and formed a force of volunteers which was also needed in Pakistan.

    He said that people must unite to face the challenge instead of panicking, and asked clerics to raise awareness regarding COVID-19. The president also asked media houses to play their role in spreading awareness so that people adopt prevention measures.

    WATCH VIDEO:

    The president said that China was facing isolation and extreme criticism from the West over the spread of coronavirus, but, he added, the Chinese leadership has appreciated Pakistan for exhibiting full confidence in Beijing and not bringing back students.

    He admitted that the Pakistani students, who had shown concerns over not being repatriated from China, studying in 15 different universities in the virus-hit country had also now changed their opinion after being looked after by Chinese authorities in a better way.

    “I have thanked Chinese President Xi Jinping over taking good care of them [Pakistani students in Wuhan/Hubei].”

    He also said the Chinese exhibited great resilience and unity against COVID-19 pandemic and Pakistan should learn from their experience to combat the disease.

    The president added that during his trip to the erstwhile epicentre of the virus, he held hours-long discussions with the Chinese leadership over effective measures adopted by Beijing to contain COVID-19.

  • Shah Mahmood Qureshi in self-isolation after China return

    Shah Mahmood Qureshi in self-isolation after China return

    Foreign Minister (FM) Shah Mahmood Qureshi, who on Wednesday morning returned from his trip to Beijing, has confirmed that he is in self-isolation as per instructions of the Pakistani government.

    Speaking to SAMAA TV, FM Qureshi, who was accompanied by President Arif Alvi and Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar, said that he had self-isolated himself since the government had advised everyone returning from abroad to self-isolate in case they had contracted the new coronavirus — COVID-19.

    “Before leaving we did a swab test here and when we landed, Chinese officials took our blood samples. They both came back negative and we took another blood test after our meeting with President Xi Jinping. The results of the second test haven’t come back yet,” the minister said.

    However, he decided to isolate himself as a precaution for a few days. “My only interactions are over the phone,” he said, adding that he would undergo another swab test within five days. “I am going to follow protocol.”

    The delegation had on Monday reached China on a two-day visit at the invitation of the Chinese president.

    It was warmly welcomed by Chinese Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Han Changfu, Pakistan Ambassador to China Naghmana Alamgir Hashmi and other senior officials of the Chinese government as well as the Pakistan Embassy in Beijing.

    Other than signing multiple agreements to enhance cooperation between the two countries, the visit was aimed at expressing solidarity with China amid the deadly coronavirus outbreak.

  • ‘Recovered’ coronavirus patient dies

    A 36-year-old man, who was discharged from one of the makeshift hospitals built to contain the coronavirus outbreak, has died of respiratory failure in Wuhan, according to a report by a Shanghai-based news portal.

    South China Morning Post quoted the news portal as reporting that Li Liang had been admitted to the hospital built to treat patients with mild and moderate symptoms on February 12, according to his wife, surnamed Mei. He was discharged two weeks later with instructions to stay in a quarantine hotel for 14 days.

    Mei said her husband was not feeling well two days after leaving the hospital, with a dry mouth and gaseous stomach. On March 2, Li said he felt sick and was sent to a hospital, where he was later certified dead.

    The death certificate issued by the Wuhan health commission said the direct cause was COVID-19, and listed respiratory blockage and failure as the symptoms which could have led to his death.

    Since the death earlier this month, Fangcang Hospital — one of Wuhan’s makeshift facilities — has been issuing emergency notices saying that more discharged patients have been readmitting after falling ill again. The hospital is currently conducting antibody tests on all patients before discharging them, to ensure they are fully recovered.

    Last month, Xinhua — the official state-run Chinese press agency — had reported that the country had discharged a total of 36,117 patients from hospitals after recovery.

    The criteria for deciding if a patient has recovered varied between provinces, but in general, Chinese hospitals required people to test negative twice in a row, and to show no obvious symptoms such as a fever. Patients who were released were supposed to check in with their hospital and could face retesting — which was when some tested positive again.

    The Current had also quoted a key Chinese respiratory disease expert as saying that some discharged coronavirus patients could still carry the virus and be infectious, potentially posing another complication to Beijing’s efforts to control the epidemic.

    Zhao Jianping, the head of the coronavirus containment team in worst-affected Hubei province, had said a minority of patients who were discharged from hospital after tests showed they were negative for the virus later tested positive again. China counts patients whose throat or nose swabs show up positive for the virus in a nucleic acid test, and those whose CT scans show lesions in their lungs, as infected cases.