As the world grapples with the peril of the novel Wuhan virus, China has started to roll down the lockdowns and has eased travel restrictions for the citizens. The People Republic of China and its official Wuhan virus tally includes more than 81,000 infections and 3,305 deaths. The Chinese officials have claimed that the cases have been brought to zero and that is the reason– cities are being re-opened.
However, the risk of new outbreaks, albeit a second wave of the disease looms as China opens its cities hurriedly in a rather greedy attempt to cash in on the world’s misery. This could be a fatal mistake on part of China which had hidden the severity of the disease when it first broke out in November/December.
The possibility that some infections still linger undetected (asymptomatic people) raises concerns that the end of lockdowns will see thousands of infectious people move back into daily life without knowing they carry the virus. The number of known asymptomatic cases has been classified by the Chinese government. As a result, it has made the citizens of Hubei province more susceptible to their government’s ill-planned step to reboot the cities at the earliest. South China Morning Post, citing unpublished official documents, recently said that the number of these silent carriers was more than 40,000.
Last week, after authorities lifted restrictions in Hubei, the epicentre of the outbreak, clashes broke out when residents were blocked from entering the neighbouring province of Jiangxi. Videos posted on social media showed crowds walking toward a line of riot police, overturning police cars and shouting: “Hubei, let’s go!”
The terror amidst Chinese people increased after a case emerged in Henan province in which a woman was confirmed to have been infected after coming into contact with an asymptomatic patient.
To dissipate such fears, the Chinese health authorities on Wednesday began reporting and releasing data on asymptomatic cases of the Wuhan virus. Health authorities in Liaoning province were the first to do so on Wednesday, saying the province had 52 cases of people with the Wuhan virus who showed no symptoms as of March 31, they said in a statement on a provincial government website.
In total 1,541 people with asymptomatic coronavirus infections were under observation as of the end of Monday.
According to a report in South China Morning Post, “About 3 to 10 per cent of patients who recovered from COVID-19 tested positive again after being discharged from hospital, doctors in Wuhan have found.” Therefore it does not make any sense whatsoever to open the cities, as the recovered positive patients and asymptomatic patients together could infect a much larger populace of the country and the world in no time. And things could be far more devastating than they are now.
Although, the hospital where the patients were tested positive again had said that they did not found any evidence that these patients have become infectious, based on close observations of their family members and laboratory tests.
But again the question arises, “Can we take them (Chinese) for their word?” After all, China and WHO up until 14th January on the top of their voice told the entire world that Wuhan Virus could not be transmitted from one human to another. China colluded with WHO to play down the virus so that the economic activities could go on as normal, and that no travel bans could be imposed on them.
China is in a hurry to get back on its feet because it wants to profit from the crisis and put its economy back on track. The country is looking to earn billions of dollars by selling test kits, masks and ventilators when the world is fighting from a virus that originated in China. As per a report by Bloomberg, the factories in China are working in three shifts to match demand. “There’s no country in the world that doesn’t want to buy a ventilator from China right now,” said Li Kai, director of Beijing Aeonmed, “We have tens of thousands of orders waiting. The issue is how fast we can make them.”
As a result, China has been sending faulty testing kits to countries that are in duress and want medical equipment at the earliest. Spain, Czech Republic, Turkey, The Philippines, and Ukraine are some of the many countries that have returned the faulty test kits of China in bulk numbers.
While officials say the virus has been beaten, not everyone appears to believe it. Culling numbers and censoring data is something that comes naturally to the Chinese authorities and this is the reason why they did not count the asymptomatic patients up until now in its official records.
The desperation to be back in business and earn few nickels is driving the Xi Jinping regime mad. The Chinese need to immediately stop the re-opening of the cities. China has put the entire humanity at risk and nobody on the planet is prepared for another outbreak when we have barely braved the first one.