Infection route not clear in UK, Chinese medical team shares experience

A Chinese medical team shared China's experiences with UK officials and health workers in its COVID-19 battle, which include medical resources allocation, mechanism of joint prevention and control, as well as the centralized quarantine measures, the team told the Global Times on Saturday.

They returned to China on Friday. According to Zhang Ke, a member of the team and psychology and high-risk behavior intervention expert from Shandong Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the UK and China are using different strategies to fight the coronavirus.

Zhang noted that in the UK where medical resources are mainly concentrated in its Department for Health and Social Care, the main strategy is to solve problems with medical treatment, while China has been mobilizing its community health workers and grassroots management to fight the coronavirus. 

Due to a lack of epidemiological investigation at the moment, the infection route is not well understood in the UK, the expert told the Global Times. Therefore, UK officials and health workers are impressed with China's epidemiological investigation and screening featuring  joint prevention and control mechanism.

Officials from the Scottish government also said they would like to know China's experience in the allocation of medical resources, as the local medical system will be under tremendous pressure if the pandemic further spreads, according to the team.

The expert team introduced China's experience in treating mild COVID-19 patients. In China, all confirmed coronavirus infected patients are hospitalized for treatment, which helps monitor the patients' condition and prevents further spread. Suspected cases are also subject to isolation and monitoring in hospital.

In addition, the team carried out five exchange activities on COVID-19 among Chinese students, overseas Chinese and members of Chinese institutions in the UK during their stay. It instructed the Chinese citizens in Britain to separate indoor and outdoor environments and advised them to stop using public transport, in a bid to avoid infection.

It also launched online diagnosis and treatment and distributed epidemic control supplies to some Chinese citizens in the UK.