Editor's Note:

Following the US, while struggling to combat the COVID-19, some European countries try to pass the buck to China by criticizing the latter's so-called lack of transparency. British Daily Mail reported scientific advisors have warned UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson that China's officially announced figures for cases of coronavirus infections could be "downplayed by a factor of 15 to 40 times." What triggered them to make such comments? Is China indeed short of transparency when reporting the outbreak? The Global Times interviewed two Chinese experts for their opinions.

Zeng Guang, expert at the National Health Commission of the People's Republic of China (NHCPRC), and chief epidemiologist of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention

Zeng Guang Photo: Courtesy of Zeng

With increasing awareness of the coronavirus, China has developed the trial version 7 of the diagnosis and treatment protocol for novel coronavirus pneumonia, and the criteria for confirmed cases has been repeatedly revised and become more rational.

In spite of the absence of global common criteria for confirmed cases, diagnosis across the world tends to be based on clinical symptoms, CT manifestations and test results. Hence, the number of infected cases should be similar even if applying criteria of different countries. The opinion of some Western media outlets that the purpose of China adopting a different way to classify confirmed patients to other countries is to get a lower rate of infection is totally wrong.

Western media is still criticizing China for initially concealing data and the severity, nature and scale of the outbreak. Since NHCPRC classified the novel coronavirus pneumonia as an epidemic on January 20, China has been reporting on the outbreak in a timely way. In the early stages, China indeed had little idea of COVID-19, nor was it capable of diagnosing the disease when it barely distinguished it from the normal flu. It is true that initial reporting lacked accuracy, but it is wrong to regard that as a cover-up. Absent from the initial investigation, Western countries cannot empathize with China's hardships at that time.

I have no idea what scientific basis there is for scientists' claims that China's outbreak could be "downplayed by a factor of 15 to 40 times." If it is a mathematical model, these scientists seem to only take the laws of virus transmission into account and ignore deliberate intervention to curb the outbreak. With effective measures, the outbreak in China rules out the possibility of following that trend.

Such a conclusion must be inaccurate. It may turn out to be appropriate to apply the model to European countries and the US, where countermeasures are far from effective and complete.

Xin Qiang, deputy director of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University

Xin Qiang Photo: Courtesy of Xin

The intention of some European and US politicians of passing the buck to China is to divert blame for their poor response to the outbreak. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, even demanded China to "pay damages to the US and the world," which sounds really absurd. Politicians use such rhetoric for political purposes, but it is astonishing to hear scientists, who are usually known as rigorous and unbiased, make such statements over China's number of confirmed cases.

If these scientific advisors' notions were true, would the Chinese government lift the lockdown in Wuhan, the worst-hit city in China by COVID-19? Warehouse and logistics businesses in Chinese metropolises, like Beijing and Shanghai, have nearly returned to normal, and a wealth of factories and firms have resumed operations. As of April 1, over 82,000 cases were confirmed in China, according to figures released by the Coronavirus Resource Center at Johns Hopkins University. Following the logic of these UK scientists, there would be over 3 million infected patients, which is inconsistent with China's current social trends.

Furthermore, how could these British scientists know the exact number of China's infected cases? The data held by the Chinese government must be the most accurate, and what it discloses is also transparent. With a population of over 1.4 billion, we can't rule out the possibility of deflection, but 15 to 40 times is over-exaggerated.

I suppose the claims that these scientists had made are just conjectural, based on their prejudice against China, which is shared by many Western countries. They are skeptical of anything the Chinese government is doing or has done: information or data Beijing declared on coronavirus is "false," "concealed," or "misleading." They regard China's assistance to other countries and regions on COVID-19 as "Chinese PR propaganda."

In the face of the global pandemic, all countries across the world should adopt a cooperative stance, discard all prejudices, and overcome any obstacles on geopolitical contradiction, historical feuds and interest conflicts. COVID-19 is a common foe for humanity; no country is capable of tackling it by itself. Only by global coordination can we beat the disease.