Virus tide turning for China

The novel coronavirus epidemic saga appears to be taking a new and weird twist.

After being locked out by many countries - including European Union member Italy, which is badly hit - the tables could be turning for China.

It could well be getting close to a point after which it can itself turn around to shut the door on foreigners if the trend of incredible improvement continues.

That's if you totally believe the words of mainland infectious disease expert Zhong Nanshan.

Certainly, some do - but not everyone is so sure.

Zhong - the first mainland expert to have officially confirmed the new virus is infectious - dropped a bombshell during a press conference in Guangzhou yesterday.

He made comments on quite a number of points - but the most remarkable of all involved several issues.

He made the bold assertion that the virus was under control - this came several days after Hong Kong's Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung Kin-chung uttered a similar expression in the Legislative Council.

Zhong said he was now confident the disease would come under control before the end of April.

If the trend continues, the present plight of China being isolated by many parts of the world could turn around to see the mainland facing the danger of importing cases from countries like South Korea, Japan, Italy and Iran, where new infections have been occurring at a steeper rate than that of China on the whole.

Will that eventually happen?

On a related subject, Zhong made a comment that was even more striking than the rest of his remarks. Although the novel coronavirus epidemic began in Wuhan, he said the virus may have originated somewhere outside China.

What a dramatic claim! Could it be true? Only scientists are in position to answer.

Zhong's hypothesis, however, is bound to generate a whole set of new questions.

If the virus originated elsewhere, why was Wuhan the first place to see it explode into an epidemic? And how did it make its way to Wuhan from outside China without affecting nations along the route?

I'm sure that, as people struggle to answer these questions, many conspiracy theories will emerge with people subscribing to rival political ideologies that support speculation backing their own leanings.

Those critical of America will continue to tie the new virus to the influenza that has already claimed tens of thousands of lives in the United States in the latest flu season.

Those skeptical of the Chinese communists will be eager to point to media reports that Chinese researchers had been caught stealing live virus samples from a P4 laboratory in Canada. No doubt they would use those reports to explain how the new virus may have had its origin elsewhere but broke out in the mainland.

Given Zhong's weighty revelations earlier that led to the lockdown of Wuhan and many Chinese cities to prevent the disease from spreading, it is likely that his heavy words in Guangzhou will ignite a round of new debate on the virus itself.