Spotlight: Debunking Michael McCall’s conspiracy claims about China, COVID-19

BEIJING, Aug. 28 (Xinhua) — During the COVID-19 pandemic, some American politicians have disregarded the facts, fabricated and spread a series of lies to stigmatize China for political purposes. The so-called investigation report released by Michael McCall, a Republican and ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was full of such prejudice and lies and based on deliberately pieced together incidents.

Allegation 1: China failed to heed the lessons of the 2003 SARS outbreak, providing inaccurate information about the pandemic in the early stages and covering up the truth.

Fact Check: COVID-19 is one of the greatest challenges that humans have encountered in centuries. At the beginning of the pandemic, mankind knew little about the source of the disease, the incubation period, ways of transmission, the pathogenic mechanism, the transmission power, the source of infection, and people’s immunity. It took researchers time to accumulate evidence and deepen understanding of the virus. Until now, humans’ understanding of it remains quite limited.

At the outset of the COVID-19 outbreak, China, at the earliest possible date, took the initiative to release information to the public in an open, transparent and responsible manner and has communicated with the United States on many occasions about the pandemic.

According to “Timeline of China releasing information on COVID-19 and advancing international cooperation on epidemic response,” China’s regular briefing on the outbreak with the World Health Organization (WHO), relevant countries and regions and China’s Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan came on Jan. 3, 2020. Also starting Jan. 3, China began to inform the United States of the pneumonia outbreak and response measures on a regular basis.

On Jan. 9, an expert team from the National Health Commission (NHC) made public a new type of coronavirus, initially identifying it as the cause of the viral pneumonia in Wuhan. China informed the WHO about the epidemic, sharing with the WHO initial progress in determining the cause of the viral pneumonia. The WHO released a statement, saying that the preliminary identification of a novel coronavirus in such a short period of time was a notable achievement.

On Jan. 12, the China CDC, the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and the Wuhan Institute of Virology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, as designated agencies of the NHC, submitted to the WHO the genome sequence of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), which was published by the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID) and shared globally.

“The WHO has been in constant technical communication with China since Jan. 3 on the severity, transmission dynamics and the possibility of sustained human-to-human transmission, the clinical course, and effectiveness of treatments, and the WHO has provided detailed information to the international community under the framework of the International Health Regulations (IHR),” Dr. Gauden Galea, the WHO representative in China, told Xinhua on May 5.

Allegation 2: China played down the risk of human-to-human transmission about the virus to the public.

Fact Check: At the beginning of the pandemic, when there was a limited number of clinical cases, China’s NHC grouped together experts of different disciplines to carry out etiological and epidemiological investigations to strengthen research on and judgment of the clinical manifestations of infected patients.

On Jan. 12, China publicly shared the genetic sequence of COVID-19.

On Jan. 20, a high-level expert team of China’s NHC led by renowned Chinese respiratory expert Zhong Nanshan confirmed the people-to-people transmission of 2019-nCoV and infections among medical staff.

Allegation 3: China manipulated statistics throughout the outbreak and excluded asymptomatic cases when collecting data of confirmed cases.

Fact Check: Asymptomatic carriers usually refer to those that have no fever, cough and other clinical symptoms, but test positive for COVID-19. The asymptomatic cases have not been listed as confirmed cases for the following reasons:

The asymptomatic carriers are divided into two groups, namely the inapparent infections and infections with no symptoms in the beginning. It is probable to call them asymptomatic infections from the view of management science.

Besides, China has reported asymptomatic infections daily and also paid great attention to the suspected and confirmed cases. Furthermore, medical observation and quarantine measures are also applied to them.

Allegation 4: The WHO lacks transparency in publicizing information and is actively engaged in an effort to defend China’s leadership from criticism, negatively impacting the world’s understanding of the virus and hampering the global response effort.

Fact Check: The WHO is regarded as the most authoritative and professional international organization in global public health security. China, as a signatory of the IHR, has always taken the most comprehensive, rigorous and thorough measures in the light of openness, transparency and responsibility, and earnestly fulfilled the provisions and obligations stipulated in the IHR regulation.

Meanwhile the United States, attempting to shirk responsibility for its ineffective domestic control of the virus, has arbitrarily smeared China and informed the United Nations (UN) in July it would quit the WHO one year later after it refused to pay its membership dues.

Allegation 5: China actively engaged in a cover-up designed to obfuscate data and hide relevant public health information. The COVID-19 pandemic could have been prevented if the Chinese side had acted in a transparent and responsible manner.

Fact Check: An epidemic is a natural disaster, and not a man-made misfortune. China is the same as other countries in that it is a victim, not an offender. HIV cases were first reported in the United States and then spread globally; however, the international community has never asked the United States to shoulder the responsibility for the disease.

Since the beginning of the outbreak, China, always in an open, transparent and responsible manner, has actively and promptly released relevant information about COVID-19, and communicated many times with the U.S. side.

On May 1, Dr. Anne Schuchat, the No. 2 official at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pointed out in a report that while the U.S. administration imposed travel restrictions on China in late January, it didn’t follow up with many European countries until mid-March. Those delayed travel alerts, free access to mass gatherings and limited testing all led to the surge of U.S. cases starting in late February. Enditem