Published Monday, April 20, 2020 

By the A.M. Costa Rica staff and wire services

On Sunday, China was dismissing the possibility that the coronavirus pandemic originated in the biosecurity laboratory and not from animal-to-human transmission in Wuhan as commonly believed, according to a Voice of America report.

Yuan Zhiming, director of Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory, told the English-language state broadcaster CGTN on Saturday, "There's no way” the virus spread from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, specifically its P4 laboratory, which handles dangerous viruses.

He said suggestions that the coronavirus originated in the lab, popularized by conservative supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump, are “conspiracy theory.”

Deborah Birx, the response coordinator for the White House coronavirus task force, told CBS’s “Face the Nation” show on Sunday, “I think we’re still a long way” from figuring out the origins of the coronavirus outbreak.

“It’s going to take us a while to really map and trace this particular virus … to get the scientific evidence of where this virus originated,” she said. “We know it originated in China. We just don’t know how and where.”

She added, “I don’t have any evidence that it was a laboratory accident. I also don’t know precisely where it originated.”

“Right now, the general consensus is animal-to-human” transmission, she said.

According to a VOA report, the U.S. Vice President Mike Pence told "Fox News Sunday" that China was “not as forthcoming to the U.S. or the world” about the coronavirus outbreak in December.

But on its specific origins, Pence said, “We’re going to make proper inquiries at the appropriate time.”

Yuan said none of the institute’s staff had been infected, adding the "whole institute is carrying out research in different areas related to the coronavirus."

Beijing has been criticized for lack of transparency in its handling of the pandemic, with the United States investigating whether the virus originated in the Wuhan lab, where Yuan is also a researcher.

The official tally of infections in Wuhan has been questionable from the very beginning with the government frequently changing its counting criteria at the peak of the outbreak.

However, last week, Wuhan authorities admitted mistakes about counting the death toll and raised the figure in the city by 50% to 3,869.

Although the origin of covid-19 is yet to be determined, some scientists suspect the virus was transmitted to humans from animals at a wet market in Wuhan.


In Costa Rica, today at 8 a.m. Health Ministry authorities reported the sixth death of a patient infected with covid-19 coronavirus in the country.

According to a brief summary, is a 54-year-old Costa Rican man, from Alajuela Province. He was diagnosed with the coronavirus on March 6, that day he was admitted to the intensive care unit of Hospital México, in San José Province. The man had background illnesses such as hypertension, diabetes, smoking, among others.

Sunday afternoon was reported another dead. A 69-year-old Costa Rican was diagnosed with the coronavirus on March 25. He was admitted to the intensive care of the San Juan de Dios Hospital in San José  on March 28. He had high blood pressure which increased his risk factor for covid-19 coronavirus, the ministry said.

The previous death was reported on April 15, an 84-year-old Costa Rican man tested positive for covid-19 on April 1. He was admitted into intensive care at the same hosptal, San Juan de Dios,  on April 5. The patient suffered from high blood pressure. His pre-existing illness plus his age played major risk factors for contracting covid-19, said the ministry.

On April 8, the death of a 45-year-old Costa Rican was reported. He entered the country from the U.S. in March, where it is presumed he was infected. He was hospitalized for 10 days in the intensive care of the same hospital, San Juan de Dios.

The two other patients died in March. They were hospitalized in intensive care at San Rafael Hospital in Alajuela Province, both 87-years-old.

On Sunday, the ministry reported 660 patients infected with the covid-19 in the country. Authorities provided the following statistics:

- The patients' ages range from 1 to 87 with an average age of 37. Of those, 32 are children under the age of 13, 596 are between 18 and 70 years old, and 32 are elder patients over the age of 70.

- 15 are being treated in public hospitals, where 10 of them have been reported in intensive care with delicate health conditions.

- It was reported 131 infected patients are Social Security employees.

- Of those infected, 317 are women (48%) and 343 are men (52%).

- 56 foreigners are infected.

- 112 coronavirus patients have fully recovered.

- 7,142 people have been ruled out since the virus was first reported in the country in March.

The UNED University provides a daily updated number of patients infected in each district throughout the country at its Covid-19 Map.

As of Sunday night 2,401,379 people have been confirmed infected worldwide. The pandemic has killed 165,044 patients and 623,903 patients made a full recovery, according to recent statistics reported by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

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Could China be accused responsible for the deaths caused by the covid-19 pandemic around the world? We would like to know your thoughts on this story. Send your comments to news@amcostarica.com