Coronavirus: surgical masks, assets of Chinese diplomacy
An employee of Public Health France shows surgical masks.
AFP - FRANCOIS NASCIMBENI
Text by: RFI Follow
2 min
They are now part of our lives, and many are from China!
This country exported 220 billion masks abroad in 2020. These are the figures of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce published this Friday, January 29.
Protections against viral pneumonia also used diplomatically by Beijing.
Publicity
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With our correspondent in Beijing,
Stéphane Lagarde
China has provided nearly forty masks per person in the world, said two weeks ago, the spokesman for Chinese customs.
After recalculation, it is finally 34… But regardless, the figure is enormous and returns today in the press release of the Ministry of Commerce.
Because, for Beijing, this is indeed an “
important contribution to the global fight against the epidemic.
"
Gold
These 224.1 billion surgical masks, these 2.31 billion protective suits and the 1.08 billion screening kits exported abroad in 2020, are worth gold.
China owes them for saving post-Covid-19 Chinese growth.
It is also a way of making people forget that the first sources of contamination were discovered in the country.
"The workshop of the world"
A year after Wuhan, while a WHO team investigates the origins of SARS CoV-2, factories in the “workshop of the world” continue to provide what is needed to protect against viral pneumonia.
Syringe for vaccines or even resuscitation ventilators: 271,000 units were exported last year to hospitals around the world.
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Read also: China: despite the coronavirus, the country will post positive growth of 2.3% in 2020
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