Canadian Health Minister Patty Hadju says the federal government has no
reason to believe the Chinese government is hiding the full extent of novel
coronavirus infections and deaths in that country. 6park.com
She also accused a journalist who asked her about the matter of fuelling
conspiracy theories. 6park.com
Ms. Hajdu was asked about China’s conduct in the wake of a report from
Bloomberg News that said U.S. intelligence officals have told the White
house Beijing has concealed the full extent of the coronavirus outbreak in
China, where the novel coronavirus first appeared. 6park.com
The health minister was asked whether she trusts China’s statistics and how
Canada can be assured it has accurate pandemic modelling if Beijing has
been low-balling its data. 6park.com
She said Canada has not seen any evidence that China has under-reporting the
impact of the virus. 6park.com
“There is no indication that the data that came out of China in terms of
their infection rate, and their death rate, was falsified in any way,” she
told reporters at an Ottawa briefing Thursday. 6park.com
“In fact it you look at the death rate overall in China it’s much higher
than the one we’re seeing now.” 6park.com
The health minister said Canada relies on the World Health Organization to
coordinate the flow of data from all countries. 6park.com
Asked whether the WHO data can be considered accurate if China’s data is
not, Ms. Hadju then criticized a reporter who had asked questions about the
matter. 6park.com
“Your question is feeding into conspiracy theories that many people have
been perpetuating on the Internet,” Ms. Hajdu said. “There is no way to
beat a global pandemic if we are actually not willing to work together as a
globe.” 6park.com
The coronavirus outbreak began in China in late 2019 but Beijing has
reported fewer cases and deaths than in the United States, which now has the
world’s largest outbreak, with 214,000 confirmed cases and 4,800 deaths. 6park.com
Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying reiterated during a daily
briefing in Beijing on Thursday that China has been open and transparent
about the coronavirus epidemic in the country and sharply criticized U.S.
officials who cast doubt on China’s disclosures.