Coronavirus: epidemiologists warn it’s too early to relax amid Beijing outbreak
- ‘It’s better to keep people on their toes,’ says chief scientist at Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention
- A caution is issued after another CDC official said the contagion was under control
Beijing has a long way to go before residents can relax over the recent coronavirus outbreak, China’s top epidemiologists have cautioned after an earlier statement that the contagion was under control.
“We’re trying to control the outbreak … it’s better to keep people on their toes,” Zeng Guang, a chief scientist at the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said.
“Although the outbreak is under control, there are still a lot of fundamental problems to resolve, such as how to prevent the recurrence of the epidemic, the renovation of Xinfadi market, and other markets in a similar situation,” he said.
“I think now is the time to discover all kinds of potential problems. We are still searching how wide is the scope of patients, the number, especially as the outbreak is spreading from Beijing to other provinces like Hebei. Those are being investigated,” Zeng said.
“Controlling the outbreak is not the end. The conditions that breed epidemics still exist.”
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His comments came a day after Wu Zunyou, the CDC’s chief epidemiologist, said Beijing’s recent Covid-19 outbreak had been brought under control, although more cases were expected to be detected in the coming days as a result of mass testing in the city.
