What are the real numbers of coronavirus infection in China?
According to local authorities, it is in these hours that covid-19 is returning with new infected and one fatality, the first after 8 months without officially recorded covid-19 deaths. 138 the number of new positives in one day, mostly concentrated, about 80, in the Hebei area (43 are in the northern region of Heilongjiang that since yesterday is in a state of emergency). Is it a coincidence that we are just now learning about new infections, while WHO officials are crossing national borders to investigate the origin of the pandemic? Indeed, in these hours an international scientific team from the World Health Organization has arrived in the infamous city of Wuhan, where it all began in late 2019. The 15 experts of different nationalities are tasked with trying to trace the origin of the scourge. The team is under quarantine and it is already a case the stop of two additional team members who were banned from entering after they tested positive to a covid-19 test carried out in Singapore. The organization has replied that the two were negative before leaving but Beijing has reiterated the niet. “China will strictly adhere to the requirements of prevention anti Covid-19,” said the spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Zhao Lijian. Thus continues the saga of controls and the long-distance challenge between WHO and Beijing that a commission of inquiry on the national territory would never have wanted. Now, however, the team, or at least most of it, has crossed the Chinese borders and will remain for 5 or 6 weeks to investigate in the Celestial Empire. We will have to explore “all roads,” Fabian Leendertz, of the German Robert Koch Institute, told Agence France-Presse. The first death in months, so symbolic and enough to throw the population into panic, was detected in Hebei province, the region surrounding the Chinese capital Beijing (21 million inhabitants). Just five days ago, Shijiazhuang and Xingtai, two cities in Hebei province, were placed in confinement after about 130 symptomatic positives and as many asymptomatic positives were detected. In both centers the swabs race immediately started, a complex challenge since they are agglomerations of, respectively, 11 and 7 million people. Officially, total deaths from covid-19 in China since the pandemic began are only 4,635.
by Basit Abbasi – FN