Fewer virus deaths easy to explain

Measures worked

"Some politicians and people in Western countries keep questioning the accuracy of China's death toll and mortality rate, but their medics rarely have such doubts because they know how Chinese medics work and the support we get from the government," Tang said.

Also, some people naturally believe that China's medical technologies and medics' skills lag behind those in the West, so they assume that China isn't capable of keeping such a low death toll and infection numbers, he said.

"But containing an epidemic is more about how the central government, local government and people implement epidemic control measures rather than treatment methods that are relatively standardized," he said.

At the beginning, some people in Wuhan thought epidemic control measures such as putting the city under lockdown starting on Jan 23 and restricting their movement were too harsh. But now they fully understand that those measures saved many lives, now that the virus is ravaging the world, Tang said.