Today everything seems hunky-dory in Eyam, a pretty British village of 900 people southeast of Manchester. Children can be seen picking plump blackberries from hedgerows, cyclists amble on roads covered with fallen leaves. But in 1665, this idyllic village quarantined itself, with the residents making the heroic choice to sacrifice their lives to stop the spread of the bubonic plague.

The same story of responsibility and heroism links Eyam in the 1660s with Wuhan in 2020 when it too made the same difficult choice after the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), a once-in-a-century deadly epidemic, hit the city of 11 million people in Hubei Province, central China.

Thanks to the lockdown of Wuhan, the infections were controlled and valuable time was bought for the rest of China and the world to contain the disease. Yet despite the sacrifice, there are still groundless and politically motivated accusations to vilify China. The global narrative of COVID-19 should be objective and truthful, based on facts.

Responsible response

It is wrong to accuse China of covering up. China’s handling and sharing information on the virus has been transparent, speedy and responsible.

On December 27, 2019, a hospital in Hubei Province of China reported three cases of pneumonia of unknown causes for the first time. It was only two days later that relevant authorities carried out an epidemiological investigation. On December 31, four days afterward, the World Health Organization (WHO) office in China was notified.

On January 3, Chinese officials provided information to WHO on the cluster of cases of “viral pneumonia of unknown cause” identified in Wuhan. The virus was separated on January 7.