TASS:
How long will it take to deal with the epidemic? Any comments on this? Thank you.
Ma Xiaowei:
The epidemic situation is severe and complex, and is in a critical stage of prevention and control. With regard to its spread and scope, there have been local outbreaks in Wuhan and sporadic outbreaks nationwide. Both confirmed and suspected cases have been reported in 30 provincial regions, with the exception of Tibet autonomous region. Cases have also been found in Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions and Taiwan province, as well as in some neighboring countries. As for its transmission characteristics, some patients in the early stages of the infection have low-grade fever or normal body temperatures, and there are also many mild cases as well as recessive infections. Currently, the infectivity of the virus is on a rise and the "walking sources of infection" have greatly increased the difficulty of preventing and controlling the epidemic. The disease is mainly transmitted through the respiratory tract, but our knowledge of the new coronavirus is still very limited. The source of infection has not yet found, and its pathogenic mechanism and how the virus mutates are still not clear. As a new infectious disease, we cannot rule out the possibility of the virus changing over a period of time. There may be some new developments and the extent to which the virus affects people of different ages also varies. We have experience in fighting SARS, which took three to four months from discovery to outbreak. As for the pneumonia caused by the new coronavirus, there are patients who have milder infections but observations show that the virus is also infectious during its incubation period. This period lasts roughly 10 days, with the shortest being one day and the longest, 14 days. This is quite different from the SARS virus. At present, the rate of the epidemic is accelerating and will probably continue for some time. There may be an increase in new cases.
With the adoption of personnel control measures in Wuhan and the first-level public health emergency response widely activated in most provincial regions, corresponding measures have been taken and our prevention and control efforts will be further strengthened. It is expected that the preventive control measures will take effect one after another over a period of time.
