On the evening of March 27, Beijing time, Tsinghua Latin America Center held a video exchange session on "Sharing China's experience to assist Chile and Latin America in the fight against Covid-19", in which Professor Ma Hong, an expert of the National Expert Group on New coronavirus pneumonia of the National Health Commission of China, and Professor Ning Yi, the Executive Director of Meinian Public Health Institute of Peking University, were invited to share their experiences and lessons learned in the fight against the epidemic with the Chilean community. The conference was strongly co-organized by theFundación País Digital, the Universidad Católica de Chile, Universidad de Chile, Universidad Andrés Bello and the Universidad de Desarrollo.
A total of 130 people has participated in this videoconference, including leaders and medical experts from the Universidad Católica de Chile, Universidad de Chile, Universidad Andrés Bello, Universidad de Desarrollo; representatives from government agencies, such asEconomic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, the Chilean Embassy in China, Corfo, Prochile and InvestChile; representatives of the Fundación País Digital and Banco Security; as well as representatives of Chinese enterprises, including China Construction Bank, Bank of China, State Power Investment Corporation, China Harbour, Huawei, Nuctech, Dahua Group, and Didi.
Prof. Ning Yi is the executive director of the Meinian Public Health Institute of Peking University, and a senior expert in epidemiology. He has achieved a lot of scientific achievements, including the upcoming publication "Prevention and Interpretation of New Coronavirus Cases". During the conference, Prof. Ning Yi gave an insightful lecture to Chilean friends on the topic of "Experiences and lessons learned in the prevention and control of new coronavirus pneumonia from the perspective of an epidemiologist". Firstly, he gave an example of how COVID-19 spreads and how fast it spreads. COVID-19 is not a seasonal flu, but a very dangerous pandemic that can cross national borders. Then, he introduced the key points of COVID-19 prevention and control based on China's experience and lessons learned in the process. He said there are three key points, the first one is to determine who is the source of transmission, and the source must be isolated. At the beginning, Chinese hospitals only accepted patients with serious illnesses while those with minor illnesses were isolated at home. However, it can cause infection among family members as well as community members; the second is to confirm the transmission route, that is, how it was spread from the source to others. The route of transmission must be cut off. Maintaining social distance can effectively reducethe transmission; The third key point is how to protect vulnerable populations such as children and the elderly. In addition, Prof. Ning also emphasized that "health care workers are extremely valuable nowadays and we must pay attention to protect the doctors and nurses". Finally, Prof. Ning analyzed the confirmed COVID-19 cases in Chile since the outbreak until now, and concluded that the spread of COVID-19 in Chile is very fast, which has exceeded 1000 cases. The number of new confirmed cases has tripled in 4 days, which means the spread of the virus has spread from family transmission to community transmission. He hoped that this exchange would remind our Chilean friends to pay more attention to the current development of the epidemic and made more efforts. Moreover, he also hoped that the epidemic can be effectively contained in Chile.
Then, Prof. Ma Hong gave a lecture on "Panic caused by new coronavirus Crisis and how to response", and discussed with the audience on how to adjust their mindset properly in the face of the epidemic from the perspective of a senior psychologist. Professor Ma Hong is the deputy director of the National Center for Mental Health which belongs to Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. She has been involved as a psychological counselor in a number of major national emergencies, including SARS, the Wenchuan earthquake, the Yushu earthquake, and NCCV pneumonia. She believed that it is very important and necessary to strengthen the training for health care workers regarding personal protection. During the epidemic, more than 40,000 health care workers from other Chinese provinces went to Wuhan to support the fight against the Covid-19. Up to now, none of these 40,000 support workers has been infected, which cannot be separated from the intensive training. At the same time, Professor Ma Hong mentioned that hundreds of psychiatric experts were sent to provide psychological supportto patients and health care workers, which achieved excellent results. In addition to psychologists, Prof. Ma also highlighted the key role that epidemiological investigations played in controlling the epidemic. From China's practice, Prof. Ma made several suggestions on how to reduce the social panic, such as: establishing a command center, improving multi-sectoral cooperation mechanism, establishing multidisciplinary expert groups to bring together the insights of different parties, and strengthening the protection for the public and health care workers. In particular, Prof. Ma pointed out that correct policy decisions are especially important to alleviate the public panic.
After the presentation, the Chilean participants raised questions regarding their concerns, such as, will the outbreak make 40-70% of the population infected? Any suggestions on the best protective equipment, rapid testing of all potential sources of infection? How long do you think it will take to develop a COVID-19 vaccine? Why the mortality rate in one country is so different from another? Is it necessary to test staff temperatures daily? How to meet the emotional needs of healthcare professionals? These questions were answered professionally by the two experts. The Chilean participants from all sectors expressed their gratitude to the two experts for their professional answers and practical advice.
Online seminar in progress
Mr. Fernando Reyes Mata, former Chilean ambassador to China and director of the Latin America Centerfor China Studies at the Universidad Andres Bello in Chile, said that the development of psychological policies is very important to deal with the social panic caused by the COVID-19 epidemic, both in the early stages as well as in the following phases.
Professor Eduardo Vera, Director of Foreign Affairs of the Universidad de Chile, expressed his gratitude to the Chinese experts for bringing such a wonderful lecture. Many experts from Universidad de Chile have actively participated in this event and they thought that the insights of the two experts are very valuable for the current situation in Chile.
Dr. Pedro Bouchon, Vice Rector of the Universidad Católica de Chile, said that "this exchange was positive and effective, in which the two experts shared their valuable experience with us. We will share the information with our country to provide good advice to our policy makers and do our best to deal with the impact of this outbreak on Chile".
Professor Chen Taotao, Director of Tsinghua Latin America Center, presided the meeting and said that "China has achieved a decisive victory in the prevention and control of the new coronavirus pneumonia epidemic, while the outbreak in Chile and Latin America is showing a clear upward trend. Facing such a serious situation, the Center, as a platform to promote exchanges between China, Chile and Latin America, hopes that by sharing experiences in this way, it could help the anti-epidemic work in Chile and Latin America at this critical moment".
