The Year of the Mouse came to the end, and the Year of the Ox arrives. What can we expect in the new year? Three experts share their views with China Daily's Zhang Zhouxiang.

Public health

Li Taisheng, senior doctor from Peking Union Medical College Hospital, who worked at a severe patient ward in Wuhan for 80 days

Keyword for Year of the Mouse: Lesson
Keyword for Year of the Ox: Caution

It was on Feb 7 that I traveled to Wuhan and joined the battle against COVID-19; on April 27, I came back as the last group to withdraw. During the 81 days there, I hosted a C9 ward for patients in critical condition, and we received a total of 109.

I have fully experienced how we learned to treat the patients in severe condition, what medicine to give them and what treatment measures to apply.

The COVID-19 pandemic is, in my view, the most influential moment in the past 50 years. So far, 106 million people have been infected, of which 2.3 million have died. More importantly, the whole world's order has been disturbed and everybody has been affected in daily life. Economic growth has slowed, companies were shut down and jobs were lost.

The failure of some countries in coping with the pandemic makes things worse. Some of their politicians falsely resorted to "herd immunity" to contain the virus, while some politicians barely adopted half measures.

A lesson must be learned from this. Epidemic prevention remains the top priority of humankind and there is no excuse to waver on any point.

Some said there is a hope of the whole world controlling COVID-19 because we now have vaccines. Vaccines are good weapons against epidemics and they will hopefully make the situation better, but it would be foolish to expect COVID-19 to disappear entirely thanks to vaccines.

The novel coronavirus has a lower death rate, but it is more sophisticated in two aspects. First, those infected by it might show no symptoms for a long period, which makes quarantine more difficult; Second, it has a higher rate of mutation, which raises the risk of bypassing immune systems even after vaccination.

Thus, we might need to coexist with the novel coronavirus for a long time. A look back at recent decades will show many newly mutated viruses emerging, such as ebola, zika, bird flu or swine flu. There are more epidemics that might challenge humankind, so we must improve our public health system, deepen our research and show respect to nature.