[The Epoch Times, May 25, 2022](The Epoch Times reporters Luo Ya and Shang Yan interviewed and reported) On May 23, Shanghai epidemic prevention expert Zhang Wenhong said that “the inflammation induced by Omicron is weaker than the flu” topic appeared Many people on Weibo’s hot search list agree with this view and believe that the authorities should adjust the reset policy. However, Li Qiang, secretary of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee, still insists on unswervingly adhering to the general policy of “dynamic reset”, commenting that the game continues under the epidemic in Shanghai.
On May 22, Zhang Wenhong, director of the National Medical Center for Infectious Diseases of the Communist Party of China and director of the Department of Infectious Diseases of Huashan Hospital Affiliated to Fudan University, gave a speech at the 7th Academic Conference on Respiratory Disease Prevention and Control of the Chinese Preventive Medicine Association. He said Omicron has been spreading faster than chickenpox among known infectious diseases, so its spread is difficult to control. In addition, the inflammation induced by Omicron is weaker than that of the flu, but the reaction to people with weak resistance will be heavier. If the patient is old and has a long-term illness, it may be fatal.
Zhang Wenhong also said that the challenges faced now are actually not as high as expected, and the main challenges still come from vulnerable groups, but further increase in vaccine coverage can prevent severe illness.
He said that the epidemic will not end in the short term, “we need longer time and more patience”.
Once Zhang Wenhong’s remarks were announced, they immediately rushed to the hot search list on the 23rd. Many netizens agreed with his point of view, saying, “The summary is: spread fast, low toxicity, difficult to control, and need to coexist.” “Listen to the voice of scientists! Stop messing around!”
Some netizens also said: “I’m really not afraid of getting the new crown, but I’m afraid of being taken to the shelter for no reason; I’m afraid that halfway to work, the neighborhood committee will call and say that the neighbor is a close connection, and I will go home ‘silently’ immediately; I’m afraid of my privacy, My itinerary was unreservedly asked by the transfer staff!”
Another netizen said: “We can’t be banned for a lifetime, we have to live a normal life, this virus can’t be completely cleared.”
Expert: Zhang Wenhong’s statement is a scientific fact
In an interview with The Epoch Times on the 24th, Li Longteng, deputy director of the Department of Health of the Taiwan Executive Yuan, said that Dr. Zhang Wenhong’s statement is a scientific fact. At present, although there are many cases of infection with Omicron, the proportion of severe cases is relatively small, so there may be no need to be so nervous.
He said: “I think if the mainland is closed down, it should be opened up a little bit. Because it has a fast infection rate and relatively few deaths, so just focus on the severe ones and take good care of them. Don’t let him die, that’s enough.”
Dr. He Meixiang, a Taiwanese virus prevention expert, also told The Epoch Times that Omicron is a weaker strain than Delta, so its mortality rate will be much lower at all ages.
Omicron focuses on protection of vulnerable populations
Zhang Wenhong said in this report that based on the current situation, we must eventually return to the protection of vulnerable groups. (The so-called “vulnerable population” refers to the elderly and those with underlying medical conditions.)
He took the case fatality rate of South Korea and Australia as an example. The case fatality rate of these two countries is relatively close, basically maintained between 0.09% and 0.1%, which is close to the global average influenza case fatality rate of 0.1%. This fatality rate is also a relatively uniform data for Omicron in various countries recently.
At the same time, Zhang Wenhong emphasized that the vaccination rates in these countries are very high.
Dr. Meixiang He holds the same view. She believes that getting a vaccine has a chance to reduce the death rate of Omicron to the same as the flu. She took the United Kingdom as an example. Official data released by the United Kingdom in March showed that the fatality rate of the new coronavirus in the United Kingdom has been lower than that of influenza, at around 0.035%, due to the mildness and extremely high immunization rate of Omicron.
Dr. He Meixiang emphasized, “The key point of the UK is that their vaccination rate, especially the elderly, is really high. In the UK, the vaccination rate is about 90% for people over 65 years old, and it is also 90% for people over 50 years old. Eighty to ninety.”
According to official data released by the Chinese Communist Party, China’s vaccination rate is close to those of these Western countries. As of May 5, the number of people covered by the CCP virus vaccine nationwide has reached 91.22%, and the number of people over 60 years old who are covered by vaccination also accounts for 86.23% of the elderly population.
At present, there are strong voices in the Chinese people asking the authorities to change the zero-clearing policy and adopt a mode of coexistence with the virus. Zhang Wenhong advocates precise prevention and control on a small scale, not a one-size-fits-all lockdown.
Zhang Wenhong’s last appearance at the Shanghai Epidemic Press Conference was on March 25, and then Shanghai’s epidemic prevention policy began to change. From March 28, Shanghai Pudong and Puxi were closed in batches, and the whole of Shanghai was closed on April 1. The serious secondary disasters caused by Shanghai’s “zero-clearing policy” have also been criticized at home and abroad.
The closure of Shanghai has had a severe impact on the economy. China reported its worst results in two years on Monday, with consumption at its lowest level and unemployment near an all-time high. Yan Huixin, deputy chief executive of the WTO Center at the China Economic Research Institute, told The Epoch Times that China’s lockdown has resulted in a drop in economic activity and reduced supply of goods, disrupting the global supply chain and further affecting its major exporters, the US and European markets.
However, when Li Qiang, secretary of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee, presided over a symposium of experts on epidemic prevention and control on May 21, he still stated that he would unswervingly adhere to the general policy of “dynamic clearing”.
Professor Yuan Hongbing, a liberal jurist based in Australia, told The Epoch Times that the dynamic reset has caused the entire Chinese economy to suffer heavy losses, but the current epidemic prevention is not based on science and rationality to protect people’s livelihood, but on politics and autocratic dictatorship.
He said, first of all, “dynamic clearing” was originally proposed by Xi Jinping; secondly, he repeatedly stated that he personally commanded, personally led, and personally deployed epidemic prevention; thirdly, he said that China is now in a period of peace and prosperity, and all countries in the world are The epidemic is rampant, and only China’s epidemic has been continuously and dynamically cleared, showing his so-called system confidence.
He emphasized that it is because of these political factors, and no one in the entire Politburo, including officials above the provincial and ministerial level, dared to express objection to the zero-clearing policy.
The number of deaths in the CCP: only 2 cases in a year and a half vs 586 in two months
The authenticity of the epidemic data reported by the CCP, especially the data on those who died from the CCP virus, has caused widespread doubts from the outside world. “Forbes” magazine published a long article on January 6 this year, saying that China’s data lack reliability and coherence, and do not have research value.
In this wave of Omicron epidemic, Shanghai did not start to announce the number of deaths from the epidemic until March 18. The epidemic data released on the official website of the Shanghai Health and Health Commission shows that from 0:00 on February 26, 2022 to 24:00 on May 23, 2022, in the past three months, a total of 57,775 confirmed cases in Shanghai (excluding asymptomatic infections), Died 586.
On the official website of the Chinese Communist Party’s Health and Health Commission, as of 24:00 on May 16, 2020, the cumulative number of deaths from the epidemic nationwide was 4,634, and a cumulative total of 82,947 confirmed cases were reported. There are 4,636 cases, and a total of 105,811 confirmed cases have been reported.
Official data show that in the year and a half that included the outbreak of the highly lethal delta strain, only two people died in the limited data released by the CCP.
A senior Japanese media person, Akio Yaita, previously told The Epoch Times that the CCP’s monitoring statistics, including the unemployment rate, are never correct. Therefore, the epidemic is the same, and they are hiding too many things.
Akio Yaita said that the CCP has tied official careers to the epidemic. “In this case, all officials will deceive and hide data. Therefore, the entire Chinese epidemic is now reported only by the official media, without the voices of the people or foreign countries. The media can interview, but this data is basically unreliable.”
Responsible editor: Li Qiong#