In the past few days, except Hubei Province, the number of new cases of Covid-19 has been declining for many days. The new pneumonia epidemic has been highly concerned by Margaret Chan, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and the former Director-General of the WHO, who also feels relieved about this. "This is a very good sign that prevention and control measures are starting to take effect." But she also warned that "the current epidemic situation is still serious and should not be overly optimistic, let alone taken lightly. All regions should continue to implement the central government's preventive and control measures on the epidemic to avoid a rebound."

"Compared with SARS 17 years ago, despite the faster spread of the new coronavirus pneumonia, the death rate is not high and most of the patients are mildly ill, so there is no need for people to be overly panicked." Margaret Chan told the journalist that she has dealt with many new major infectious disease outbreaks, and each time she encountered panic as a problem. "Panic, rumors and discrimination are our biggest enemies in the face of major infectious disease epidemics. Epidemics can be handled with scientific and effective measures, but irrational behavior caused by panic is difficult to control. So if people make a lot of irrational behavior, it will slow down the effective control of the epidemic. We should neither take the epidemic lightly nor overly panic, and do a good job of personal protection scientifically, which may seem like a small contribution to the health system, but is actually a big contribution to the society as a whole."

Previously, while the WHO identified the outbreak of now coronary pneumonia in China as a "public health emergency of global concern," it also stressed that travel and trade restrictions were not recommended. In response, Margaret Chan said, "During my 10 years as WHO Director-General, I have issued several 'public health emergencies of global concern' and there are always countries that make irrational decisions. For example, during the MES outbreak in the Middle East, there were cases where some countries grounded flights. But in my experience, it is usually short-term and will resume soon." Chan said at the same time that WHO has repeatedly praised China for its transparency, openness and speed in the prevention and control of the outbreak, and its ability to sequence the genes of the new virus within a week or so of the outbreak and share it with the world through WHO. The development of the prevention and control of the epidemic requires global collaboration and effort, and no country can stay out of the way.

"When the epidemic is underway, we have made a national effort to control the epidemic, reflecting the superiority of our political system and the country's strong governance capacity." Margaret Chan said, of course, there is still a lot of work to be done in the follow-up, and the country will definitely sum up the experience, learn from the lessons, and raise the whole society's health and epidemic prevention capacity to a new level. "In the future, the work on sanitation and epidemic prevention science for all people should be done continuously, while the crackdown on illegal wildlife markets should be more stringent."