BEIJING, Feb 17 (NNN-XINHUA) – The pedestrian path at the foot of the Acropolis hill in the heart of Athens was lit red on Friday evening for an hour.
Hundreds of Greeks and Chinese people living in Greece held a gathering and walked around the neighbourhood holding Chinese red lanterns to express solidarity with China in the fight against the Covid-19 (coronavirus).
“The world should show gratitude to the Chinese people for their courage and sacrifices in battling the disease decisively and in preventing its spread to other countries,” said Fotis Provatas, president of the Chamber of Greek-Chinese Economic Cooperation, which organised the event.
Till now, China has contained more than 99% of the confirmed cases within its borders.
Since the outbreak, China has been taking decisive and unprecedented measures, including locking down cities, to protect public health, both domestically and globally.
Thanks to the self-imposed sacrifices, the world has so far not seen a major global outbreak.
As of Saturday, when nearly 70 thousand people in dozens of countries have tested positive for infection, the number of confirmed cases of infection outside China accounts for less than one percent of the total.
“We appreciate and we admire all this gigantic effort, their determination and discipline, because they know that this is the only way to help themselves and the world from the further spread of the epidemic,” Provatas said.
For Mario Cavolo, an Italian American writer living in China’s northeastern province of Liaoning, his family have to change their basketball routine on the weekend now, by holding it indoors as part of local community efforts to control the novel coronavirus outbreak.
“If you think about the responsibility of a dutiful citizen, 1.4 billion people in China have to stay at home, doing what should be done — not spreading the virus. It’s amazing,” said Cavolo, who has been living in China with his wife and child for years.
In the neighbourhood where Cavolo lives, local security guards make extra efforts to register residents and take residents’ body temperatures at the entrance of each residential community. “Our family realises that we have to follow these strict rules because we are part of the community, to protect each other,” he said.
While implementing the strictest measures to prevent and control the disease across the country, China is also cooperating with international community to prepare other countries for a potential outbreak and prevent the epidemic from growing.
Michael Tiberi works with a company making LED masks in Las Vegas, where local life is hardly affected by the epidemic. He appreciates China’s efforts, saying, “The quarantine seems to be working very well, to reduce the spread of the virus and contain it in specific areas.”
“If it weren’t for China’s efforts, the number of cases outside China would have been very much higher,” said Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, of the World Health Organisation earlier this month.
Since the outbreak of the epidemic, China implemented the most comprehensive and rigorous measures to prevent and control the spread of the virus.
Wuhan city, an important transportation hub in central China and capital of Hubei Province, was locked down since Jan 23, with all public transportation suspended. Several other cities in Hubei Province have followed suit.
To improve medical treatment capacity, tens of thousands of workers were mobilised to build two makeshift hospitals in Wuhan with a total of 2,600 beds for patients in serious condition. The construction of each hospital took only 10 days.
Provincial-level regions paired up with cities across Hubei to provide medical aid. A total of 217 medical teams with 25,633 medical personnel were sent to Hubei, with a massive influx of equipment and supplies.
The unprecedented moves yielded positive results. By the end of Saturday, the daily new confirmed cases of the disease outside Hubei have been dropping for 12 consecutive days, with the overall confirmed cases on the Chinese mainland reaching 68,500, according to China’s National Health Commission.
By Saturday, a total of 1,665 people have died of the virus while 9,419 people have been discharged from hospital.
The progress is hard won by all and is fully recognised by the international community. So far, more than 160 leaders of foreign governments and international organisations have expressed their support for China.
“China is doing many good things that are slowing the virus, and the facts speak for themselves,” Ghebreyesus said. “This has to be recognised, and the whole world is seeing this.”
To help businesses pull through, the Chinese government at all levels, rolled out supportive measures such as tax and rent deductions, delaying loan payments, cutting interest rates and waiving overdue interest.
International organisations and leading economists expressed confidence that the impact on China’s economy is temporary and will not alter the long-term growth trajectory.
The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank expressed their support for China, saying, China’s economy “remains resilient” and the Chinese authorities have policy space to respond to the outbreak.– NNN-XINHUA
