After Botching Coronavirus Response, China Claims It Is Ready for 'Disease X' NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP via Getty Images

The head of the Chinese National Disease Control and Prevention Administration, Wang Hesheng, insisted during a press conference this weekend that the Chinese Communist Party would be prepared for any future pandemics caused by an unknown “Disease X.”

“Although Disease X is hard to avoid, the pandemic it could cause can be prevented. We need to be better prepared,” Wang asserted on the sidelines of China's “two sessions,” the annual gatherings of the federal legislature, the National People's Congress (NPC) and the advisory body the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). Wang met with reporters to discuss the possibility of a new pandemic and how China is allegedly at the forefront of preparing to ensure that new diseases did not cause outbreaks with global consequences.

“Disease X” is a term popularized by the World Health Organization (W.H.O.) to describe a currently unknown pathogen that can begin infecting humans at any time and presents the threat of an epidemic or pandemic. W.H.O. Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has repeatedly addressed the possibility of a pandemic fueled by “Disease X” during public appearances in 2024, encouraging the world to embrace a pandemic treaty that would grant the W.H.O. greater power over addressing health problems in its sovereign member states.

China last faced a “Disease X” in late 2019, when what is now known as the Wuhan coronavirus or “COVID-19” began spreading in central Wuhan, China. Multiple Chinese government decisions – including silencing doctors concerned about the spread of a novel disease, allowing locals to participate in mass “superspreader” events, and telling the W.H.O. that human-to-human transmission of the highly contagious disease was unlikely – exacerbated the spread of the disease, ultimately leading the coronavirus pandemic that has claimed upwards of 7 million lives at press time.

The W.H.O. declared coronavirus a pandemic on March 11, 2020.

Wang told reporters that China was working to “implement a holistic approach to national security” in anticipation of the discovery of a novel disease.

“We will (also) build and improve a multichannel monitoring and early warning system and strengthen risk assessment in infectious diseases to identify them early,” he added, according to Malaysia's the Sun.

The Global Times, a Chinese state propaganda outlet, detailed Wang's suggestions for preventing another pandemic, which began with encouraging work to “establish a system of related laws and regulations, carry out prevention and control in accordance with law, optimize the allocation of resources, and improve the mechanisms for emergency conversion.”
The state media outlet claimed that China “currently has built the world's largest net-based direct reporting system for infectious diseases” and established 20 “national outbreak acute infectious disease prevention and control teams” to “improve the capacity and level of response to infectious diseases.”

Wang urged the Communist Party to invest in a “system of mass prevention and control” and “carry out extensive promulgation of science and education to comprehensively enhance public health awareness.”

During various public engagements in January and February, Tedros – who worked closely with Beijing in the early days of the Wuhan pandemic but later attracted some condemnation for tepidly suggesting China should reconsider its brutal lockdown and quarantine camp policies – has advocated for the creation of a global comprehensive plan against “Disease X.”

“We lost many people [during the coronavirus pandemic] because we couldn’t manage them,” Tedros claimed in an address to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January. “They could have been saved, but there was no space. There was not enough oxygen. So how can you have a system that can expand when the need comes?”

At the World Government Summit in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in February, Tedros said an outbreak of “Disease X” was “a matter of when, not if,” and demanded the establishment of a global pandemic treaty empowering the W.H.O.

“The world is not prepared for a pandemic,” Tedros insisted. “The painful lessons we learned are in danger of being forgotten as attention turns to the many other crises confronting our world … we will pay dearly next time, and there will be a next time.”

The novel coronavirus disease that the W.H.O. identifies as “COVID-19” began spreading in Wuhan as early as October 2019, according to subsequent studies. It first attracted major public attention in the West in January 2020, as reports of overwhelmed hospitals in the city and a chaotic Communist Party response began spreading. By the time the virus began spreading internationally, Chinese authorities had taken several measures later identified as likely worsening the spread of the disease. In January of that year, for example, Wuhan residents participated in an attempt to break the record for the world's largest banquet, attracting 130,000 people eating family-style indoors. The then-mayor of Wuhan, Zhou Xianwang, admitted during a press conference that month that 5 million people had left the city to travel for the Lunar New Year holiday, taking the virus around the planet.

Zhou offered to resign and took the blame for the poor handling of the disease in January 2020. He currently serves as a CPPCC member representing Wuhan's Hubei province.

In addition to those missteps, Wuhan police harassed and interrogated individuals who suggested that the city was seeing the eruption of a new outbreak. In January 2020, Chinese police arrested at least eight people for “spreading rumors,” including Dr. Li Wenliang, a 34-year-old who abruptly died, reportedly of a coronavirus infection, in February 2020 after being forced to issue a humiliating apology for suggesting health workers take greater pains to wash their hands and engage in other activity to prevent the spread of infectious disease.

 

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