Six fallacies and truths about China's epidemic control

"At present, medicines for fever and cough relief have been prepared, which can meet the needs of the whole village for two months," said Fu Xiangpeng, a doctor from the mountainous Liguanying Village in Zhenxiong County, southwest China's Yunnan Province. "People with mild symptoms can go to village clinics to get drugs, and medicine will be sent to the elderly people with difficulties."

Jiao Yahui, the NHC official, said that drug supply must be ensured in rural areas and cover the Spring Festival travel rush period or even longer. More importantly, severe cases should be transferred to at least county-level hospitals.

Jiao said that counties and towns had been ordered to prepare standby vehicles to transport severe patients as quickly as possible. Internet hospitals and roving medical teams have also ramped up rural medical capacity.

FALLACY 6: "OFFICIAL COVID DEATH TOLL UNRELIABLE"

The fact is: China has always published information on COVID-19 deaths and severe cases in the spirit of openness and transparency.

The global criteria for judging COVID deaths are divided into two categories. Some countries count only cases of people who tested positive for COVID-19 and died of respiratory failure induced by the virus. Other countries count all the deaths as COVID deaths as long as the deceased had tested positive for the virus in the past 28 days.

Since 2020, China has been adopting the first criterion, counting a death from respiratory failure caused by the novel coronavirus after a positive COVID-19 test as a COVID death.

China has also published cases in which the patients were infected by novel coronavirus but the direct causes of the death were underlying diseases. In such cases, the causes of the death were attributed to underlying diseases.

China canceled mass nucleic acid tests following the adjustments to its COVID response policy, making it very difficult to obtain accurate data on the infection caseload in the first place. This is the normal de facto situation in other countries.

Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist of the China CDC, pointed out that there is a calculation method called "excess death" in the field of public health, which can evaluate possible underestimation. Regarding the "excess death" that may be caused by this wave of epidemic, the team is already doing the relevant work and will release the results later.

China's war against COVID-19 is still underway, and victory shall come for the 1.4 billion Chinese people. The fallacies and their fabricators will prove to be wrong.