The Chinese embassy to Ethiopia keynoted that recently, some US politicians and media outlets have been fabricating preposterous allegations and lies of one kind or another in order to shift the blame to China for their inadequate response to COVID-19. As to him, However, as Abraham Lincoln said, «You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time».
Lies evaporate in the light of truth. It is time to let facts speak for themselves. In future, we will continue to reveal the truth to the world whenever new lies appear. China seems in corner in giving responses for the allegation orchestrated by US politicians and media outlets. The China government has blamed the manipulators for stating allegation statements with reality check note. Excerpts:
Allegation: Wuhan is the origin of the virus. Reality Check: Being the first to report the virus does not mean that Wuhan is its origin. In fact, the origin is still not identified. Source tracing is a serious scientific matter, which should be based on science and should be studied by scientists and medical experts.
Historically, the place that first reported a virus were often not its origin. For example, HIV infection was first reported by the US, yet it might also be possible that the virus did not originally come from the US. And more and more evidence proves that the Spanish Flu did not originate from Spain. Source tracing is a scientific matter. Its main purpose is to prevent similar epidemics from happening again and causing damage to the human society. At the moment, scientists around the world are searching for the source of the virus, and have presented many academic views on it. Chinese scientists are also earnestly conducting studies in order to provide the scientific basis for identifying the origin at an early date and dealing with the virus with targeted measures.
On 24 January, The Lancet, an authoritative British medical journal, published an article co-authored by Cao Bin, Director of the Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Department of the China-Japan Friendship Hospital, Huang Chaolin, Vice President and Chief Physician of Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital, Professor Li Xingwang, an expert with the Clinical and Research Center of Infectious Diseases of Beijing Ditan Hospital, Professor Ren Lili, an expert at the Institute of Pathogen Biology of Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Zhao Jianping, Director of Department of Respiratory Medicine of Wuhan Tongji Hospital, etc.
The article reviews and analyzes the first 41 confirmed cases of COVID-19 admitted to hospital in Wuhan between 16 December 2019 and 2 January 2020. It has found that 27 of the 41 patients had been exposed to Huanan seafood market, while the rest 14 had not. The symptom onset date of the first patient identified was 1 December 2019. None of his family members developed fever or any respiratory symptoms. This patient had no exposure to Huanan seafood market. No epidemiological link was found between him and later cases.
Viruses are the common enemy of mankind, which may appear at any time and in any place. Epidemics are natural in origin, not man-made. The origin of a virus or epidemic is a victim, not a culprit. It is unfair and unacceptable to blame it or hold it accountable.
On 1 May, Dr. Michael Ryan, Executive Director of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme, said that science needs to be at the center of the exploration of the source of the virus, and they would like to see scientists at the center. He also stated that the WHO had not received any data or specific evidence from the US Government relating to the purported origin of the virus. Michael Melham, Mayor of Belleville of New Jersey, said that he has tested positive for coronavirus antibodies, and thinks he may have been sick with the virus back in November 2019. That is over two months before the first reported case in the US on 20 January 2020.
On 6 May, USA Today reported that 171 people in Florida showed symptoms of COVID-19 as early as in January 2020, and none reported traveling to China. That was several months before officials announced it had come to Florida.
On 3 May, International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents published an article entitled “SARS-COV-2 was already spreading in France in late December 2019”. According to the article, researchers reviewed the medical record of 14 selected ICU patients admitted for influenza-like illness between December 2, 2019 and January 16, 2020, and retrospectively performed COVID-19 reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) on them between April 6 and 9, 2020. It was found that one sample was positive taken from a 42-year-old man. The absence of a link with China and the lack of recent travel abroad suggest that the disease was already spreading among the French population at the end of December 2019.
Allegation: The virus was constructed by the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Reality Check: All available evidence shows that SARS-CoV-2 is natural in origin, not man-made.
On 30 January, the prestigious UK medical journal, The Lancet, published an article on COVID-19 by research teams including China CDC, which considered the virus a new human-infecting coronavirus, based on the phylogenetic analysis of the ten 2019-nCoV genome sequences from nine confirmed patients from Wuhan.
The article pointed out that compared with SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, 2019-nCoV was more closely related to two bat-derived severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)like coronaviruses. The analysis suggests that bats might be the original host of this virus.
On 19 February, The Lancet published a joint statement by 27 leading medical experts from eight countries, indicating that scientists from multiple countries have published and analyzed genomes of SARSCoV-2, and they overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife, as have so many other emerging pathogens. On 17 March, five prominent scholars from the US, the UK and Australia pointed out on Nature Medicine that the evidence shows that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus.
In his blog article posted on 26 March, Francis Collins, Director of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), pointed out that this novel coronavirus arose naturally. Researchers discovered that the virus could not have been man-made for it does not have the backbones of known coronaviruses. Instead, it probably evolved from a bat coronavirus and a novel virus found in pangolins. It is not the product of purposeful manipulation in a lab.
On 21 April, WHO spokesperson Fadela Chaib said at a news briefing that all available evidence suggests the virus has an animal origin and is not manipulated or constructed in a lab or somewhere else. It most likely has its ecological reservoir in bats but how the virus came from bats to humans is still to be seen and discovered.
On 30 April, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence of the US issued a statement on its official website making clear that the Intelligence Community concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not man-made or genetically modified.
Executive Director of the World Health Organization Health Emergencies Programme Michael Ryan said on 1 May that numerous scientists have looked at the genome sequence of this virus and we are assured that this virus is natural in origin. World Health Organization Representative in China Dr. Gauden Galea said on 5 May that all available evidence to date suggests that the virus has a natural animal origin and is not a manipulated or constructed virus. Many researchers have been able to look at the genomic features of the virus and have found that evidence does not support that it is a laboratory construct.
The French news weekly, Valeur Actuelle, cited information from the country’s intelligence authorities to state that it is absolutely certain that the novel coronavirus is not a leak from a P4 lab in Wuhan. Allegation: China could have contained the virus within Wuhan in the first place. However, it allowed many of its nationals to fly to Milan, New York and other places, spreading the virus to the rest of the world. Reality Check: China took the most stringent measures within the shortest possible time, which has largely kept the virus within Wuhan. Statistics show that very few cases were exported from China. The Chinese government took the most comprehensive, rigorous and thorough measures in a timely fashion, and effectively broke the chain of transmission. According to a Science report, thanks to these measures, the number of infections in China was reduced by more than 700,000.
China put Wuhan under a temporary lockdown as of 23 January, meaning that there were no outbound commercial flights or train services from 24 January through 8 April. So it was impossible for Wuhan residents to travel overseas during this period of time. When Wuhan was shut down on 23 January, only one case was publicly confirmed in the US. When the US closed its borders on 2 February to all Chinese citizens and foreigners who had been to China within the previous 14 days, there were only eight confirmed cases in the US according to its official data. When the US declared a national emergency on 13 March, the number of its confirmed cases was 1,896. When China lifted the lock down on Wuhan on 8 April, the number of confirmed cases in the US rose to 400,000. At present, confirmed cases in the US have exceeded 1.2 million, with as many as over 70,000 deaths so far. Looking back, it took less than 100 days for the number of confirmed cases to surge from one to one million in the United States. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo pointed to a research by the Northeastern University showing that strains of the novel coronavirus entered his state were not from China. The New York Times cited US research that most New York coronavirus cases did not come from Asia. Data from Canada›s major provinces show that the virus was brought into the country by US visitors. The French research institute Institut Pasteur found that the virus strain circulating locally in France is of unknown origin. None of the imported cases in Russia was from China. The Australian Department of Health noted that only a very small portion of imported cases came from Northeast Asia. In Singapore, cases imported from China were less than one tenth of those from other countries. The Japanese National Institute of Infectious Diseases believed that the strain confirmed in Japan since early March was not from China.
Allegation: The Chinese contracted the novel coronavirus while eating bats. Reality Check: Bats are never part of the Chinese diet. The Internet video clip in which a Chinese female tour guide drinks bat soup was part of a travel promotion show filmed by her team on a small Pacific island in 2016 and was posted online that year. Bat soup was a local specialty. Bats are never part of the Chinese dishes. Wuhan Huanan seafood market, where cluster cases were identified in the early days of the epidemic, does not sell bats. Allegation: China is reopening wildlife markets. It should immediately close all “wet markets”. Reality Check: There are no so-called “wildlife wet markets” in China. China has passed legislation banning all illegal hunting and trade of wild animals. On 24 February 2020, the Standing Committee of the National People›s Congress of China adopted a decision on thoroughly banning illegal wildlife trade and eliminating consumption of wild animals to safeguard people›s lives and health. This has further established the regime of complete prohibition of hunting, trading and transportation of terrestrial wild animals for the purpose of consumption. The legislative decision was welcomed by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
Selling wild animals is illegal in China. Such an act will be immediately stopped once discovered, and will be punished in accordance with law.
There are no so-called “wildlife wet markets” in China. And in fact, China does not even have the concept of “wet markets”. What we have in China are farmers’ markets and live poultry and seafood markets. They sell fresh fish, meat, vegetables, seafood and other farm produce. A few of them sell live poultry. Basically, they are no different from the fish markets or fruit and vegetables markets in Western countries. Such markets exist not only in China, but also in many other countries. They are an important part of local life. No international law restricts the opening or operation of such markets. What were reopened in Wuhan are these traditional farmers’ markets. Research has shown extremely low homology between COVID-19 and the known coronaviruses in livestock and poultry. Based on such scientific understanding and taking into account people’s need for live poultry and seafood products, China has allowed the reopening of such markets in places where sound containment measures are in place as a prerequisite. China attaches high importance to epidemic prevention. As safeguards, competent authorities and sub-national governments have taken a host of stringent measures to strengthen the management of such markets. Subnational governments, market operators and vendors are required to earnestly fulfill their respective responsibilities and ensure that strict anti-epidemic protocols are duly enforced in these markets. Relevant authorities will also, in accordance with China’s law on animal epidemic prevention, perform quarantine and checkup on live poultry and seafood products, and rigorously implement all prevention and control measures against animal epidemics. Given the current situation in Wuhan, Hubei, the Huanan seafood market remains closed.
The Ethiopian herald May 31,2020
BY MEHARI BEYENE
