China already winning war against coronavirus - Envoy

Ambassador of People’s Republic to China to Nigeria, Zhou Pingjian, says against reports, China is winning the war against the coronavirus, officially renamed Covid-19, and its effective response has averted further spread of the virus across the world.

According to Pingjian, China will soon emerge stronger and more prosperous, explaining that the number of deaths and confirmed cases have declined consecutively and the vaccine to confront the virus is already underway. The epidemic control efforts have seen hard-won results with positive development in the contagion situation, Pingjian noted.

He said this at a dialogue held by the Centre for China Studies in Nigeria on the theme “Nigeria-china Cooperation in the context of Health Emergency: Imperative of Joint efforts and Collaboration” in Abuja on Thursday.

Since February 1, cured cases began to outnumber deaths and as at February 12, a total of 5,998 persons had been discharged from the hospital after recovery. He added that since February 3, confirmed cases were declining day by day outside Hubei, the province with Wuhan as its capital.

“There were 731 confirmed cases in February 4, 707 cases on February 5, 696 cases on February 6, 558 cases on February 7, 509 cases on February 8, 444 cases on February 9, 381 cases on February 10, 377 cases on February 11, and 312 cases on February 12,” he said.

He however clarified that the sudden surge of 14,840 confirmed cases on Wednesday compared to 1,638 new cases on Tuesday in Hubei was as a result of a revision in the diagnosis criteria for the Covid-19.

Meanwhile, the Mobile World Congress (MWC), an annual event that had in 14 years brought the biggest players in the mobile technology industry together in Barcelona, Spain, has been cancelled over public health concerns surrounding the coronavirus.

MWC, scheduled for February24 – 27, said to have a huge economic impact, would have contributed €460 million, and generate over 13,000 part-time jobs in the host location. Many companies had also planned to unveil their latest devices for the year, but these plans now have to be shelved and other arrangements made.

“With due regard to the safe and healthy environment in Barcelona and the host country today, the GSMA has cancelled MWC Barcelona 2020 because the global concern regarding the coronavirus outbreak, travel concern and other circumstances, make it impossible for the GSMA to hold the event,” read a statement by the organisers.

The event was to have a large Chinese participation, which could no longer be guaranteed with restrictions on flights from the country that has battled the disease outbreak since December 2019. Death tolls are currently put around 1,300 people, with 60,000 cases already recorded.

Businessday was informed that HMD Global, the company currently producing Nokia brand of phones had cancelled a pre-wmc briefing earlier scheduled for next Tuesday, following the company’s decision to pull out of this year’s congress in Barcelona.