China exonerates self in White Paper

Beijing, June 7

A beleaguered China on Sunday exonerated itself from the global allegations of delay in reporting the Covid outbreak, saying the virus was first noticed in Wuhan on December 27 as a viral pneumonia and human-to-human transmission was discovered on January 19, after which it took swift actions to curb it. A White Paper, released by the Chinese government, gave a lengthy explanation to refute the allegations of cover up and delay by Beijing on reporting the outbreak last year in Wuhan.

'WHO was apprised of situation on time'

After community spread and clusters of cases emerged in Wuhan, and confirmed cases were reported in other Chinese regions, China informed the WHO and other countries, including the US, of the situation.

US President Donald Trump and leaders of several countries have accused China of not being transparent in reporting the deadly disease, leading to huge human casualties and economic crisis across the world.

According to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Centre, Covid has infected over 68,00,000 people and killed nearly 4,00,000 across the world. The US is the worst-affected country with over 1.9 million cases and more than 1,09,000 deaths, while the total number of cases in China stand at 84,177.

The contagion has also battered the world economy with the IMF saying the global economy, which was in a sluggish recovery even before the outbreak, is now bound to suffer a "severe recession" in 2020. World Bank has also called for countries to step up efforts to fight the disease and improve the economy. According to the White Paper, after the Covid-19 was identified by a hospital in Wuhan on December 27, the local government called experts to look into the cases through an analysis of the patients' condition and clinical outcome, the findings of epidemiological investigations and preliminary laboratory testing results. "The conclusion was that they were cases of viral pneumonia," it said.

Researchers from a high-level expert team, formed by the NHC, confirmed that the virus was transmissible among humans for the first time on January 19, hours before they notified the public, and less than a month before the experts were alerted by the newly-discovered disease, it said. — PTI