People’s Daily
China has made great strategic achievements in prevention and control of COVID-19 while the disease continues to rage around the globe.
The pandemic is a rare global crisis and a common challenge confronting mankind. China, as the first country in the world to report the disease to the international community and to fight the pandemic, has mobilized all the people and resources in the country and made huge sacrifices to contain the disease.
It is one of the first countries in the world to bring the situation at home under control, building a defense line for the region and benefiting global efforts to prevent and control the disease with valuable experience.
Things will never be difficult till they are done. Now, more and more people have come to realize how crafty and dangerous the virus can be. However, three months ago, no one had probably expected the disease to sweep across the world in such a violent way.
To cope with such a sudden attack and menacing crisis, China had faced unimaginable risks and difficulties, including to prevent and control a virus that it hadn’t even had a clear understanding of, to curb the spread of the virus during the travel rush of the Chinese New Year, to leave no patient unattended, and to identify effective treatment methods and medicines.
Some called China’s battle against COVID-19 a miracle in the history of mankind’s fighting against infectious diseases, saying that China has taken a closed-book exam before other countries in the world and managed to contain the rampant virus when less than 0.006 percent of its people were infected.
Such an “answer sheet” of China is hard-won and heart-touching. It has recorded the painstaking efforts of the country.
Since the initial stage of the pandemic, Chinese President Xi Jinping has referred to the crisis as a big test for the Chinese nation, and guided relevant efforts and deployed resources for the battle against the pandemic in person.
On the first day of the Chinese Lunar New Year, Xi chaired a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee to facilitate further research, deployment, and mobilization for prevention and control of COVID-19, particularly treatment of patients.
On Jan. 23, two days before the meeting, the epidemic prevention and control headquarters of Wuhan, capital of central China’s Hubei Province and also the previous epicenter of the COVID-19 epidemic, shut down the city’s outbound channels at airports and railway stations and put the whole city under lockdown.
On Jan. 22, three medical teams from the Chinese People’s Liberation Army were dispatched to Wuhan to aid the city in its fight against COVID-19.
In China’s nationwide efforts to fight the epidemic, the whole society has shared the consensus that early identification, early reporting, early quarantine, and early treatment is the most effective way to curb the spread of the disease.
The country has treated COVID-19 patients in designated hospitals, dispatched leading medical experts to the front line of the battle, and concentrated resources and strengths on treating patients and saving lives.
A total of 42,000 medical staff were sent from various parts of the country to Hubei Province to help with COVID-19 fight.
To relieve pressure on hospitals in Wuhan, China built two makeshift hospitals, the Huoshenshan Hospital and Leishenshan Hospital, to treat COVID-19 patients in the city. Both of the two hospitals were built in ten days.
“In face of this unknown virus, China has taken the most courageous, flexible and aggressive control measures,” said a report of the World Health Organization (WHO).
China’s epidemic prevention and control measures have successfully broken the virus’ chains of transmission and prevented hundreds of thousands of people from being infected, indicated a research report published on Science Magazine.
The “answer sheet” of China has witnessed the steadfastness and perseverance of Chinese people.
Like other countries suffering from COVID-19, China is also a victim of the pandemic, pointed out a commentary of The Straits Times, a well-established English newspaper in Singapore.
While many Chinese people were infected with the virus and lost their lives during this unprecedented pandemic, a lot of staff members working on the front line also died at their posts.
In an effort to curb the spread of the disease, China pressed the pause button on its economy and society, became the first country in human history to lock down a megacity with more than ten million inhabitants, and activated the first-level public health emergency response across the country.
The world owes Wuhan people thanks, read the headline on a cover of a Serbian magazine.
Chinese people have contributed to humanity by sacrificing many aspects of their normal lives to prevent the virus from spreading to others, said United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
The “answer sheet” of China has reflected China’s sense of responsibility and determination to share weal and woe with the world.
China has attached great importance to and actively promoted international cooperation regarding the global fight against COVID-19 all along.
The country has been reporting to the WHO information about the epidemic since Dec. 31, 2019, one month before the WHO declared that the disease constitutes a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.
In response to some Western politicians’ groundless accusations against China, Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of famous medical journal The Lancet, put it clearly that the information that came from China at the end of January was “absolutely clear” and “we wasted February when we could have acted.”
At the critical moment of the global fight against the pandemic, China has dispatched medical expert teams to those countries in need to help with their efforts to prevent and control the disease; medical supplies produced in China have been transported to various regions around the world, and China’s updated diagnosis and treatment plan for COVID-19 has been widely shared among various countries.
Virus knows no boundaries or races. Everyone knows that the global battle against COVID-19 would not end as long as the disease is not under control in all countries.
With great sacrifices and contributions to the world during the pandemic, China has fully demonstrated its sense of responsibility as a major country, lived up to the expectations of the international community, and shown its resolve to jointly safeguard global public health security with various countries through practical actions to promote openness and cooperation.
Countries, although miles apart, are under the same sky, and together they stand, they share armors.
The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically demonstrated the global critical significance of “shared future” thinking, said Robert Lawrence Kuhn, chairman of the Kuhn Foundation in the U.S. , referring to the vision of building a community with shared future for mankind proposed by Xi.
“‘Shared future’ is an evocative phrase, offering a much-needed new way of thinking for the world, conveying a great hope,” said Kuhn. These remarks of Kuhn are believed to have represented shared opinions of people of foresight in the world.
The hope Kuhn mentioned not only come from the perseverance that Chinese people have shown in their battle against the pandemic at home, but also the joint efforts of various countries to achieve the victory over the crisis in solidarity.
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