Bruce Aylward, World Health Organization
Joint Mission to China:
"I think the key learning from China is speed —
it’s all about the speed. The
faster you can find the cases,
isolate the cases, and
track their close contacts, the more successful you’re going to be. [...]
People keep saying [the cases are the] tip of the iceberg. But we couldn’t find that. We found there’s a lot of people who are cases, a lot of close contacts — but
not a lot of asymptomatic circulation of this virus in the bigger population. And
that’s different from flu. [...]
China got patients in treatment early and have highly
sophisticated health care treatment procedures.
They are really good at keeping people alive with this disease. They have a
survival rate (with a mortality rate of just under 1% outside of Hubei province) for this disease
I would not extrapolate to the rest of the world. What you’ve seen
in Italy and Iran is that a lot of people are dying.
Panic and hysteria are not appropriate. This is a
disease that is in the cases and their close contacts. It’s
not a hidden enemy lurking behind bushes. Get organized, get educated, and get working."