False Conspiracy Mongering : China's Novel Coronavirus

"The Chinese Communist Party sees itself as engaged in a global competition over the narrative surrounding COVID-19, its origins and government responses."
"The disinformation, the conspiracy theory peddling and the wild and unsubstantiated accusations are prime examples."
We have not seen the last Li Wenliang. The question his case raises is whether the next Li Wenliang will even have the opportunity to send that first message."
Julian Gewirtz, The Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies

"People of the world have all witnessed that it is under the leadership of the CPC [Communist Party of China] that the Chinese people achieved independence, freedom and liberation and made enormous progress in national development."
"It is also under the leadership of the CPC that the Chinese national united as one and speedily fought against COVID-19, buying precious time for the global response."
Chinese Embassy, Ottawa

A doctor examines a patient who is infected by the coronavirus at a hospital in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province.

STR/AFP via Getty Images

A University of Toronto Internet watchdog, The Citizen Lab, had reported the blocking of key words by a Chinese livestreaming platform in late December, related to the coronavirus outbreak. Following that, a broader censorship followed. And Wuhan, the epicentre of the novel coronavirus outbreak in China, was sealed into military-style lockdown on January 23. Its eleven million people were virtually prisoners in their own homes, as the frightening new virus leading to pneumonia and death for many, swept through the city and the region.

To the world's misfortune, that lockdown came too late. China's attempts to shield knowledge of the new coronavirus from the outside world led it to ignore the impending disaster, to allow millions of Wuhan residents to fan out from the city during the Chinese New Year in the customary tradition of returning home to visit with family. Those visitors took with them an alarming infectious rate, not only within China, but to the world outside as well.

In Canada, the first case of COVID-19 emerged a mere three days later, on January 25 when a traveller who had been to Wuhan returned to Canada. More latterly, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, Lijian Zhao, has used the specious auspices of a Montreal-based, conspiracy-theory group called Centre for Research on Globalization to 'legitimize' its contention that COVID-19 did not emerge in China, at all. It was deliberately brought by U.S. soldiers last November to Wuhan with the intention of initiating a vicious viral war.

A pangolin, mammal thought a possible intermediate host for the coronavirus.

This conspiracy-pushing group that honours decrepit versions of 9/11 that not Islamist terrorists but the CIA conspired to destroy the World Trade Centers, delighted Mr.Lijian in its take on the Wuhan virus, who then tweeted "It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent!"
Beijing followed up by recent suggestions the virus could have originated in Italy. And now Beijing is ennobling the doctor they first criminalized, who was arrested after alerting his colleagues about a mysterious new type of pneumonia showing up in Wuhan hospitals.

And while China receives praise from the World Health Organization over its self-described timely and efficient halt to the spread of the novel coronavirus, the U.S. is shaping up as an epicentre of the viral contamination, following Italy's and Spain's ongoing crisis in trying to control the runaway contagion. This new virus is a close cousin of SARS, so much so it is classified as SARS/cov-2. SARS, another high-death-rate virus which originated in a Chinese wet-market, did not have the astonishing infectious impetus of COVID-19.

Closed Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, Wuhan.  Noel Celis/AFP via Getty Images

With the emergence of the novel coronavirus and patients admitted to hospital with a mystery pneumonia, health care workers wee infected, among them eight doctors, including ophthalmologist Li Wenliang, all who were brought in by police to be accused of spreading false rumours, and forced to humbly recant. Li contracted the virus and died of it in February. When, eventually officials made public acknowledgement of the virus they claimed it was not serious. Which led to a holiday banquet attended by 40,000 people taking place in Wuhan on January 13, and the rest is history.

Between the banquet and the millions of holiday-goers leaving Wuhan the explosion of infection began globally. Live wild game sold at 'wet' markets spawned over the years various zoonotic transmissions from animal host to human victim. This was just another one, with an explosive spread, and a deadly message. Beijing has been busy crafting a new version of events; not only that the virus originated elsewhere, but that Chinese authorities took immediate remedial action to counter its spread.

A worker in a protective suit at the closed seafood market in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, January 10, 2020. The seafood market is linked to the outbreak of the pneumonia caused by the new strain of coronavirus, but some patients diagnosed with the new coronavirus deny exposure to this market. (Stringer/Reuters)

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"For me, that is a sign that the information at the border did actually percolate through to the patient and his family."
"The system is working and the person obviously got the information that they needed to enter the health system in a safe and responsible manner."
"[The Toronto man] has been managed with all appropriate infection and prevention control protocols, so the risk of onward spread to Canada is low."
"Nevertheless it would not be unexpected that there will be more cases imported into Canada in the near term given global travel patterns."
"The risk to our community remains low."
Dr.Theresa Tam, Chief Public Health Officer, Canada

"[Once he became more ill], when he needed medical support, in fact, he followed all the information provided at the airport."
Federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu

Passengers, and people waiting to pick them up, wear masks at Toronto Pearson International Airport on Sunday. (Evan Tsuyoshi Mitsui/CBC)

At Pearson International Airport in Toronto, China Southern Airlines flight CZ311 brought home to Canada citizens who had visited relatives in Wuhan, China, the epicentre of a novel coronavirus outbreak. Among the passengers was a man in his 50s who had boarded the international flight in Guangzhou, already feeling ill, but saying nothing to anyone. Throughout the flight back home to Canada the man felt increasingly ill, as well as on arrival in Canada. He failed to report to border service officers that he had been in Wuhan and now felt ill.

The airport has instituted "detection" measures including screening questions at electronic border kiosks, asking whether travel to Wuhan had taken place in the past 14 days. Reminding people to report any symptoms similar to flu to border service agents. At those kiosks fact sheets are available printed in English, French and Chinese, outlining the symptoms that people should be aware of, and to seek out medical attention should they begin to feel ill.

The man left the airport, revealing nothing, and went to his home. This is a typical human reaction; never believing anything could happen to you, preferring to believe you're afflicted with a minor cold, and just need a good rest at home. A family member a day later dialed 911 to report that the man had recently travelled to Wuhan and was feeling ill. Wearing protective gear, paramedics responded, to take the man to Sunnybrooke Health Sciences Centre, where he was placed in isolation in a negative-pressure room. A day later, the man's wife entered the system with the very same symptoms.

"We are informing these people [passengers of flight CZ311 who may have come into contact with the man] that they may have been exposed to a potential health risk, what signs and symptoms they should look out for and when and what type of medical treatment should be sought out, if that becomes necessary."
Toronto Medical Officer of Health Dr.Eileen de Villa

There are now 19 suspected cases of coronavirus under investigation in Ontario. Numbers are growing, in a micro-reflection of China, where it is now reported that there have been 106 deaths from the coronavirus, among a growing case load exceeding two thousand, seven hundred in number and steadily increasing. In Toronto, people are beginning to panic, asking whether their medical procedures including surgeries and childbirth can take place in hospitals other than those holding patients with presumptive coronavirus.

Chinese officials have reported the illness has now infected more than 2,700 people. Several countries throughout Asia, Europe and North America have also confirmed cases. (Evan Tsuyoshi Mitsui/CBC)

Testing of all suspected cases takes place at the national microbiology laboratory in Winnipeg. In China, over 50 million people have been placed under quarantine, with new research arising in fears of "substantive" human-to-human transmission and where travel in Wuhan and 15 other cities have been restricted, all public transportation systems shut down as China desperately scrambles to halt the spread of a new virus that has spread to Europe and North America.

On average, each case in China is held to have infected 2.6 other people, up to January 18. A theoretical estimate given the population density and travel patterns of Chinese at New Year's following traditions of returning home to reunite with family during Chinese New Year. China's health minister has issued a warning that the virus is at a "crucial stage of containment". Which is to say, China hopes that the spread is being contained.

Early studies published several days ago in The Lancet reported people can become infected without being symptomatic, a condition that ensures the virus will be more difficult to contain, of a novel coronavirus of which the initial 41 confirmed cases saw one-third of those people developing acute respiratory distress syndrome or required intensive care.

106 people have died from the new coronavirus; newly infected have almost doubled

"There's a certain amount of the infection control system that relies on people's proclivity to self-report."
"You can't rule out that anyone who came into contact with this person, no matter how brief that contact was, could have been infected. But the likelihood is extremely low."
"The real risk would have been for people in his immediate vicinity [to have been exposed to the man] for prolonged periods."
Matthew Miller, associate professor, Michael G.DeGroote Institute for Infectious Diseases Research, McMaster University

It takes approximately 12 hours, slightly longer, for a China-to-Canada flight. That's a considerable amount of exposure time. Given a small enclosed area where at least a hundred people are packed closely together, and from time to time move about to access toilet facilities, to stretch their legs, contact accessibility is fairly high. Air quality aboard planes is not exactly first-class. It appears that self-reporting reliance is a dead end to singling out possible infectious agents. Which translates to Canada's system of detection on arrival is beyond faulty.