China's National Health Commission answers questions from press on new COVID-19 white paper

China's State Council Information Office on Wednesday released a white paper titled "COVID-19 Prevention, Control and Origins Tracing: China's Actions and Stance."

The National Health Commission has responded to questions raised by the press regarding the white paper.

What's the background story for issuing the white paper, and what information does the document contain?

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, China has been open and transparent in sharing information and generous and selfless in providing aid. Its efforts in response and commitment to transparency have been highly acclaimed by the international community. However, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri accused China of "hoarding medical supplies" and ruled that China must pay Missouri $24.49 billion in compensation for COVID-related losses, and recently, an article published on the official website of the White House blamed the origin of the virus on China, where some U.S. politicians made spurious allegations, accusing China of concealing pandemic information from the world and hoarding medical supplies.

In such context, China released this white paper to present a systematic overview of China's key achievement in tracing the origins of COVID-19, to attest to its contribution to international cooperation in response to the global pandemic, and to advance scientific endeavors and foster global collaboration as a responsible major country in this critical domain. Despite being the world's largest economy and most developed country, the U.S. failed to make contributions commensurate with its capabilities; even worse, it blamed its own problems on others and sabotaged collaborative global efforts to address the crisis. China firmly opposes and strongly condemns such practices.

The white paper contains a preface, the main body, and a conclusion, totaling 14,000 Chinese characters. The main body has three chapters: "Contributing Chinese Wisdom to the Study of the Origins of SARS-CoV-2", "China's Contribution to the Global Fight against COVID-19" and "The Mismanaged Response of the U.S. to the COVID-19 Pandemic."

How is the origins of the study of SARS-CoV-2 going in China? What are the next steps?

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, China has consistently dedicated substantial resources to collaborative research into the origins of the virus conducted by Chinese and international scientists. Upholding its commitment to international responsibilities and scientific soundness with openness and transparency, the country spearheaded research initiatives in critical fields such as clinical epidemiology, molecular epidemiology, environmental epidemiology, and the identification of intermediate animal hosts. China closely cooperated with the World Health Organization (WHO) on the study of the virus origins with a strong sense of global responsibility and transparency, and in 2020 and 2021, invited WHO expert teams to China to carry out joint investigations. On March 30, 2021, the WHO organized a member-state information session and press conference to present the findings about the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and published the "WHO-convened Global Study of Origins of SARS-CoV-2: China Part-Joint WHO-China Study" on its official website. To date, no findings have contradicted the conclusions of the "Joint WHO-China Study."

The next phase of the origins study should be conducted mainly in the U.S. A large number of studies have pinned the origin of the virus outside of China. A U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study reveals that out of 7,389 serological survey samples collected from nine states between December 13, 2019, and January 17, 2020, a total of 106 were COVID-19 antibody positive. This suggests that the virus existed in the U.S. before the first official case was identified. Similarly, the National Institutes of Health "All of Us" Research Program tested 24,079 blood samples collected from participants across 50 states from January 2 to March 18, 2020, identifying nine containing COVID-19 antibodies. The earliest two were collected on January 7 and 8, respectively. These findings show that the virus was circulating in the U.S. at a low level as early as December 2019, well before the first official cases were recorded. An expert associated with The Lancet suggested that SARS-CoV-2 might not have come from nature; instead, it probably came from an incident at a U.S. biotechnology lab. Between 2006 and 2013, the U.S. reported at least 1,500 serious laboratory incidents involving coronaviruses and other highly dangerous pathogens linked to diseases such as SARS, MERS, Ebola, anthrax, smallpox, and avian influenza.

These questionable events all suggest that COVID-19 may have emerged earlier than the U.S. official timeline and earlier than the outbreak in China. A thorough and in-depth investigation into the origins of the virus should be conducted in the U.S. The U.S. must not continue to turn a deaf ear to this call; rather, it should respond to the reasonable concern of the international community, share the data of earlier suspected cases with the WHO, and give a responsible answer to the world.

What is China's perspective on the performance of the U.S. in its response to COVID-19?

The delayed and ineffective response to COVID-19 in the U.S. made it the worst-performing country in handling the pandemic.

In January 2020, the federal government of the U.S., choosing to downplay the severity of the transmission, labeled the novel coronavirus pneumonia as a case of "bad flu" that would "disappear" automatically one day, touted hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin as "wonder drugs" without solid scientific evidence, and even advocated the use of detergents to control infections and transmissions, becoming a laughing stock in the scientific community. The U.S. government also deprived its citizens of the right to be informed of updated pandemic information. From March 3, 2020, the U.S. CDC stopped releasing key data on COVID-19, including tallying the people tested for the virus, on the grounds that its information might not be "accurate." Over the next three years or so, people in the U.S. could only find information about the pandemic from estimated data collected and reported by nongovernmental institutions, such as Johns Hopkins University. By mid-April 2020, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the U.S. had exceeded 660,000. However, with an eye on the upcoming presidential elections, the administration announced that the pandemic had "passed the peak" and rushed to roll out plans to reopen the economy. Insisting that citizens should be "free to choose," the government of Florida demanded schools across the state to reopen, leading to widespread infection among teachers and students.

COVID-19 overwhelmed the costly and profit-driven U.S. medical system, and vulnerable groups, such as the impoverished, ethnic minorities, and senior citizens, were the first to be abandoned by the system. According to a report from the Associated Press in June 2020, of every 10 deaths in the U.S., eight were people over 65 years old. With a strained medical system, infected people could not receive timely care, and the death toll surged. The American people's rights to life and health were in no way being guaranteed on an equal basis.

Data from the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics shows that the life expectancy in the country fell from 78.8 years in 2019 to 77 in 2020 and further declined to 76.1 in 2021, a decrease of 2.7 years from 2019. For comparison, the life expectancy in China rose from 77.3 years in 2019 to 77.93 in 2020,  78.2 in 2021, 78.3 in 2022, and 78.6 in 2023, signaling a steady improvement in population health.

U.S. CDC data released in May 2023 revealed that deaths due to COVID-19 in the U.S. totaled 1.13 million, accounting for 16.4 percent of concurrent global deaths reported by the WHO. These figures are out of alignment with the overall population size, economic strength, and level of medical technology of the U.S. and are indicative of its ineffective and unscientific response policies.

The U.S. not only botched its own response to COVID-19 but also obstructed and sabotaged international cooperation in various ways. The deliberate concealment of information by the U.S. government misled other countries and the WHO in the research and analysis of COVID-19 trends. The U.S. government publicly announced that it would take an America First approach in vaccine supply and vaccination, hoarding excess vaccines and agitating vaccine nationalism on the one hand and waging a smear campaign to discredit China's vaccines on the other. A U.S. think tank criticized the U.S. for its reluctance to provide foreign aid, saying this practice would expose the country as a "selfish isolationist when its help was most desperately needed."

Missouri and other U.S. state governments have initiated groundless lawsuits against China, holding China accountable for the pandemic. What is China's comment on this?

The state of Missouri's groundless lawsuit is a politically motivated farce orchestrated by U.S. state governments out of political self-interest that has ignored basic facts and violated fundamental legal norms. It is an affront to the sovereignty and dignity of all nations and the international rule of law. China rejects such proceedings and will never accept a judgment delivered in absentia.

The allegations in the judgment that China concealed pandemic information from the world and that China hoarded medical supplies are groundless. In the early stage of the outbreak, China provided clear information to the international community, adopting an open and transparent approach to releasing relevant information to the world. By May 31, 2020, the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism and the Information Office of the State Council had held 161 press conferences, during which over 490 officials from more than 50 government departments answered over 1,400 questions from Chinese and foreign media.

China tried every possible means to provide materials and assistance. From January 2020 to May 2022, China offered over 4.6 billion protective suits, 18 billion test kits, and 430 billion masks to 15 international organizations and 153 countries, including the U.S.

In 2020, China sent 38 medical expert teams to 34 countries to assist in local pandemic control efforts, sharing China's experience and practice in preventing and controlling the epidemic and medical treatment plans.

China made a significant contribution to the global fight against the pandemic, for which China deserves recognition and fair treatment rather than blame and damage claims. In contrast, the incompetent responses of the Missouri state government led to a mortality rate ranking among the highest in the U.S. Now the state government is trying to shift the blame for its failures, which is both irresponsible and unethical, a selfish and evading presence. China will never accede to demands for compensation claimed on baseless allegations and will take resolute countermeasures in defense of its legitimate rights.

How has China played its role as a WHO member in global health governance?

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, China lost no time sharing information on the epidemic updates and genome sequencing with the international community, including the WHO. China invited multiple WHO international expert missions to conduct joint research in its territory. China provided tremendous supplies and aid to the international community to the best of its ability and shared the experience of pandemic prevention, control, diagnosis and treatment. Constantly sticking to the shared idea of a community with a shared future for mankind, China has made significant contributions to the global fight against the pandemic through international cooperation.

In early 2020, the WHO dispatched warnings to the international community, including the U.S., cautioning against "a possible pandemic on a larger scale." On April 10, the U.S. government, which up until then had dismissed the WHO admonitions as sensational, began to accuse the media, WHO officials and Democratic members of Congress of incompetence in fighting against the pandemic. On April 14, the U.S. government announced for the first time that it would suspend funding to the WHO on the grounds that the organization had not performed its fundamental duties.

On January 20, 2025, the current U.S. government again announced its withdrawal from the WHO on the excuse that it had failed in responding to the pandemic and yielded to China's influence. Far from reflecting on its own incompetence during the pandemic, the U.S. government has gone too far in shifting the blame, which will further harm its competence in responding to new public health emergencies.

China supports the United Nations and the WHO in playing and enhancing their mandatory roles and the capacity building of global health governance. China has been, and will be, active in participating in the WHO's efforts to prevent and respond to public health emergencies, implement and amend the "International Health Regulations," and review a "pandemic treaty." China will be active in participating in the WHO's Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response (IPPPR) of the WHO and its SAGO mission by contributing advice and opinions. China has contributed and will continue to contribute Chinese perspectives, solutions and strengths to building an efficient and sustainable global public health system for the benefit of all humanity and fortifying defenses for the lives and health of all.

(Cover photo via VCG)