Guo Rui

China still faces the risk of a second wave of coronavirus infections, but another big outbreak is unlikely thanks to the country’s tight prevention and control measures, according to the country’s top respiratory disease specialist. “With our intensive follow-up monitoring procedures, the risks of a second wave [of coronavirus infections] exist but another peak is unlikely to occur [in China],” Zhong Nanshan said. Zhong, who heads a team of experts advising the Chinese government on the pandemic, said the authorities should not be complacent, with the coronavirus continuing to spread around the world. In addition, most people in China and East Asia had yet to develop immunity to the pathoge

The blame game between the US and China is putting important Covid-19 research at risk, according to China’s most renowned respiratory expert. Zhong Nanshan, 83 – who had a leading role in fighting the 2002-03 severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) epidemic and now advises the Chinese government on Covid-19 – said scientists around the world needed to team up to establish where the new coronavirus, which causes Covid-19, had come from. He said US epidemiologist Ian Lipkin, whom he had known since they worked together on the Sars outbreak, had approached him with a method to establish how the virus jumped to humans. But the work could be stalled for fear it would be distorted by political a

A top respiratory disease expert in China has attributed the heavy fatalities in the United States from Covid-19 to a failure by policymakers to heed the advice of scientists. Zhong Nanshan, a prominent scientist who has helped lead China’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, said the US performed admirably during the Sars epidemic 17 years ago but it was “completely different” now. “You can say that [the US] carried out very extensive screening or more screening than other countries … But the heavy casualties still shocked me,” said the director of China’s National Clinical Research Center for Respiratory Disease in an exclusive interview with the South China Morning Post. The US has rep

A leading public figure in mainland China’s fight against the coronavirus has suggested that Hong Kong should ease its border restrictions to boost its sluggish economy.  Zhong Nanshan, a top Chinese infectious disease expert who is often called a “Sars hero” for his pivotal role in fighting the 2002-2003 outbreak, said a mutually recognized health system between the city and the mainland could enable cross-boundary travelers to skip mandatory Covid-19 quarantines.  In an exclusive interview with the South China Morning Post, Zhong also praised Hong Kong for its efforts to contain the new coronavirus and called for more cross-border interaction to reboot the city’s economy. “Hong Kong has do

China has issued a lengthy rebuttal dismissing claims it mishandled the Covid-19 pandemic and denying claims that there had been safety problems at a virology lab in the Chinese city of Wuhan. The 11,380-word rebuttal follows an escalating war of words between China and the United States over the origin of the coronavirus that causes Covid-19. The statement was posted on the Chinese foreign ministry’s website on Saturday and has been published by state media outlets. Last week, President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said there was evidence that linked the secure facility to an accidental leak of the pathogen, although Pompeo later changed his tune and said it “could be wr

Geneticists from Britain and Germany have mapped the evolutionary path of the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 and determined there are currently three versions of it spreading around the world. The discovery of how the variants were formed and then spread could help scientists to identify its source and explain why it is so contagious. The researchers analyzed the first 160 complete viral genomes sequenced from patients between December 24 and March 4, then reconstructed the early evolutionary pathway of Covid-19 in humans through its mutations. “There are too many rapid mutations to neatly trace a Covid-19 family tree. We used a mathematical network algorithm to visualize all the plausibl

A county in central China has been put under total lockdown as authorities try to fend off a second coronavirus wave in the midst of a push to revive the economy. Curfew-like measures came into effect on Tuesday in Jia county, Henan province, with the area’s roughly 600,000 residents told to stay home, according to a notice on the country’s official social media account on Weibo. After months of restrictions to contain the spread of the coronavirus, China has reported a decline in domestic cases of Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus. On Wednesday, the country reported 36 new infections – all but one imported cases. Chinese leaders are eager to restart the economy, but have been wary o

Mainland China has reported no new domestic infections of the new coronavirus for the first time since the outbreak began. The National Health Commission on Thursday said it was also the first time Hubei province – where the Covid-19 disease first emerged – recorded no new cases either domestically or from abroad. Nationwide, there were 34 new infections, all of them from overseas. The number of new deaths was down to single digits, with just eight reported, bringing the total death toll to 3,245. The commission said 23 new suspected cases had been reported, with the total number of infections now standing at 80,928. A total of 70,420 patients have recovered. Elsewhere, infections from what

Friends of Ren Zhiqiang, the Chinese former property tycoon and outspoken critic of the country’s ruling Communist Party, are concerned about his whereabouts after losing contact with him for several days. The 69-year-old has been out of touch since an article he wrote criticizing the way in which Chinese authorities responded to the coronavirus outbreak was widely circulated online, they said. “I haven’t been able to reach Ren Zhiqiang since Thursday night … it’s been over 72 hours already,” Wang Ying, an entrepreneur and friend, said. Zhang Ming, a history professor at Renmin University in Beijing, said he too had been unable to contact Ren. “A citizen can’t just disappear, we need to know

Ding Yaqing, a lawyer in the southern mainland Chinese city of Guangzhou, just could not understand it when she saw images of people panic buying toilet paper over the border in Hong Kong because of the coronavirus outbreak. “I saw [on the news] that Hong Kong people are stockpiling toilet paper,” Ding said. “But why? How could Hong Kong ever run out?” In Haizhu district where Ding lives, the supermarkets and convenience stores are well stocked with the bathroom necessity, and there are fewer shoppers around because of measures to control the spread of the virus. For Ding, who has been working from home like many people in mainland China and Hong Kong amid the outbreak, running out of toile