Staff work on the mask production line of a company in Lanzhou, northwest China's Gansu Province, March 4, 2020. /Xinhua Photo
Editor's note: The following article is taken from the Chinese-language opinion column "The Real Point."
While the world is fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, some people in the West are rejecting products made in China, suggesting they might be spreading viruses or be toxic. Such sensational remarks, a crude attempt to smear China, will simply make those who made them an international laughing stock.
The World Health Organization has stated clearly on its website that "the likelihood of an infected person contaminating commercial goods is low, and the risk of catching the virus that causes COVID-19 from a package that has been moved, traveled, and exposed to different conditions and temperatures is also low." A new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that the virus can remain on different objects for different lengths of time. It's detectible on plastic and stainless steel for up to three days, the longest survival time on any object. In other words, as long as necessary protection and disinfection measures are taken, no object can be a transmission route of the virus.
As the world's largest producer of medical protective clothing and masks, China faced a huge gap in the supply of medical gear after the outbreak. As the epidemic prevention and control prospects continue to improve in the country, related industries have resumed full production. The daily capacity of face masks in China has reached 116 million pieces, about 12 times the capacity recorded before the outbreak.
While meeting domestic demand, China is also doing all it can to help other countries battle against the pandemic, providing urgently needed medical supplies, such as ventilators, to dozens of countries and regions, including Pakistan, Iran, South Korea, Japan, Italy, and the African Union. Andrew Cuomo, governor of New York State, the hardest-hit state in the U.S., said the state, which has about 5,000 to 6,000 ventilators, might need 30,000 of them and said it had "people in China shopping for ventilators."
President Xi Jinping, during phone conversations with foreign leaders over the past few days, stressed that China was willing to do its utmost to provide support and assistance to countries in need so as to contribute to the building of a Health Silk Road. The president is scheduled to take part in a special G20 video summit on responding to the pandemic on Thursday, aiming to promote joint prevention and control by the international community, improve global health governance, and deal with the impact of the epidemic on the world economy.
The pandemic, instead of alienating China from the world, will inevitably further enhance the world's understanding of the concept of a community of shared future.
In the face of the common enemy, cooperation is the only option for humanity. Those who are intoxicated with the smearing game will only become poisoned themselves by such toxic ideas.
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