Thread by @kakape

Bruce Aylward, just off the plane from China, giving press conference now in Geneva on joint @WHO-China mission on #COVID19.

@WHO Reminds room of genesis: "decision by the president of China in the meeting with @DrTedros, with a joint feeling that China had done a huge amount of work and it could inform both the global response and China’s own response to have an independent mission come in and do a review"

@WHO @DrTedros Team was made up of 25 people, 13 internationals and 12 Chinese, headed by Aylward. “"e saw facilities, we saw contact tracing, we saw markets in some places, we saw railway stations, airports.
Really it was quite an exhaustive and exhausting schedule.”

@WHO @DrTedros What has China done to fight #COVID19? "They have taken very standard and what some people think of as old-fashioned public health tools and applied these with a rigour and innovation of approach on a scale that we have never seen in history”, says Aylward.

@WHO @DrTedros Aylward arguing that China basically applied case finding, contact tracing, social distancing etc. at unprecedented scale and that while people were skeptical that could work for respiratory virus like #SARSCoV2, it had a huge positive impact.

@WHO @DrTedros Says people think of lockdown of Wuhan, but actually China used the same approach to different degrees in places depending on whether there were no cases of #COVID19, sporadic cases, clusters or community transmission.
"fundamentals were always the same”, but tailored to locale.

@WHO @DrTedros Aylward so far reiterating what he said yesterday at presser in China. Sounding extremely positive about Chinese actions: “China changed the course of this outbreak." “They mobilised a phenomenal collective action.” Prevented hundreds of thousands of cases of #COVID19, he says.

@WHO @DrTedros Am I the only one missing some kind of contextualising of Chinese actions in terms of political system, human rights, etc. ? Not all the lessons here can be applied elsewhere to combat #COVID19. And not all should be. Needs to be part of discussion surely.

@WHO @DrTedros Aylward says one big take-away for him: "The rest of the world is not ready” for #COVID19. Another: "You have to prepare your population. You have to bring your population along with you.”

@WHO @DrTedros Maybe most important (and bad) news: Aylward says mission found no evidence of lots of undetected mild #covid19 cases. That would mean percentage of severe cases and percentage of deaths we’re seeing now is real. Not what anyone wanted to hear.

@WHO @DrTedros Q&A starting now. After an hour. This will be a long presser...

@WHO @DrTedros Q: What happens as people go back to work etc.? Aylward says concern of course that virus will be spread again, but: "areas are prepared, they know how to deal with this when it springs up.” Still, he says, it is a risk.

@WHO @DrTedros You can always count on @HelenBranswell to ask the most important question: What’s the evidence for there not being many more mild cases that have been missed? Aylward says in multiple provinces thousands or tens of thousands of people were screened and few #COVID19 cases found.

@WHO @DrTedros @HelenBranswell Just no data to support that there's a huge amount of undetected #covid19 cases, says Aylward. Also questions whether epicurve could look the way it does, if virus was going around everywhere. “I may be wrong.” We still need antibody tests of course...

@WHO @DrTedros @HelenBranswell Why is Aylward not wearing face mask? Because I don’t have #covid19, he says. Outlines how careful he was in China. Had to wear face mask, dinners were taken in hotel room, people shouted at each other from a distance. “We washed our hands every 3 seconds”.

@WHO @DrTedros @HelenBranswell How should countries prepare for #COVID19? What’s the lesson? “Think the virus is going to show up tomorrow”, says Aylward. “If you don’t think that way, you are not going to be ready.” Couldn’t agree more.

@WHO @DrTedros @HelenBranswell Aylward says many things need to be prepared: patient transport, hospital beds, ventilators. Also: "Talk to your population. 'Folks, we have to be ready as if this hits us tomorrow.’” Tell population to wash hands, not to buy masks, etc.

@WHO @DrTedros @HelenBranswell “Time is everything in this disease”, says Aylward. Mentions @chris0dye paper estimating that measures in China delayed spread of #SARSCoV2 to other cities by 3 days. "Days make a difference with a disease like this.” (This preprint: medrxiv.org/content/10.110…)

@WHO @DrTedros @HelenBranswell @chris0dye “The big question that remains is: Are we ready? no!”, says Aylward. We’ll never be ready he says. “But we have to be as ready as possible.” #COVID19