BEIJING: China due to new coronavirus epidemic is facing the largest-ever public health emergency, but other nations were also increasingly under pressure from the deadly outbreak’s relentless global march, said President Xi Jinping.
The COVID-19 virus has so far killed more than 2,400 people, with about 80,000 infected globally, though China remains by far the worst hit.
President Xi Jinping said the epidemic was the “largest public health emergency” since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949. “This is a crisis for us and it is a big test,” he said during remarks carried by state television.
In a rare admission, at a meeting to coordinate the fight against the virus, Xi added that China must learn from “obvious shortcomings exposed” during its response.
The outbreak in China remains concentrated in the city of Wuhan — locked down one month ago — where the virus is believed to have emanated from a live animal market in December.
China s infection rate has slowed, but flip-flopping over counting methods has sown confusion over its data. There also was growing concern over the difficulty of detecting the virus.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has praised Beijing for its handling of the epidemic, but China has been criticized at home for silencing early warnings from a whistleblower doctor who later died from the virus.
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