This is important: Report of joint @WHO-China mission on #covid19 has just been released. Guess I know what we’ll all be reading today... who.int/docs/default-s…
Like Aylward in his presser the report of the joint mission heaps praise on China for its response to #covid19:
“In the face of a previously unknown virus, China has rolled out perhaps the most ambitious, agile and aggressive disease containment effort in history.”
“In the face of a previously unknown virus, China has rolled out perhaps the most ambitious, agile and aggressive disease containment effort in history.”
“Achieving China’s exceptional coverage with and adherence to these containment measures has only been possible due to the deep commitment of the Chinese people to collective action in the face of this common threat.” I’ll let others parse this sentence...
Report highlights solidarity within China: “Despite ongoing outbreaks in their own areas, Governors and Mayors have continued to send thousands of health care workers and tons of vital PPE supplies into Hubei province and Wuhan city”
This is the money quote: “China’s bold approach to contain the rapid spread of this new respiratory pathogen has changed the course of a rapidly escalating and deadly epidemic. ... This decline in #COVID19 cases across China is real.”
Assuming all this is widely accepted, the question is one I and others have raised several times in the last week: how much of this can and should be implemented in other countries?
Report says about Chinese people: “They have accepted and adhered to the starkest of containment measures – whether the suspension of public gatherings, the month-long ‘stay at home’ advisories or prohibitions on travel.” Would that be true in Germany? In the US?!
Report: “Much of the global community is not yet ready, in mindset and materially, to implement the measures that have been employed to contain #COVID19 in China. These are the only measures that are currently proven to interrupt or minimize transmission chains in humans”
“Fundamental to these measures is extremely proactive surveillance to immediately detect cases, very rapid diagnosis and immediate case isolation, rigorous tracking and quarantine of close contacts, and...
...an exceptionally high degree of population understanding and acceptance of these measures.” You can say that again.
I’ll highlight two more points from the report that seem particularly important:
What happens now in China as measures are relaxed. Cases might reappear, but country is better prepared now, report says. joint mission “endorses China’s working assumption that in most provinces and municipalities it should soon be possible to manage a resurgence in #COVID19.”
The other point: “The time gained by rigorously applying #COVID19 containment measures must be used more effectively to urgently enhance global readiness and rapidly develop the specific tools that are needed to ultimately stop this virus” I think everyone will agree on this.
Bear in mind: This was a very rapid first parsing of some things that jumped out at me from the report’s conclusions. There will be much more to talk about with this report. It may well dominate the #covid19 debate in the coming days.
Also remember: This was a report written jointly by international and Chinese experts. It is the product of a scientific mission and a lot of diplomacy.
