Badiola: "China is acting very responsibly in the face of the coronavirus, and that has prevented the emergency from being declared"

Juan José Badiola directs the Center for Encephalopathies and Emerging Communicable Diseases of Zaragoza and has held positions of responsibility at the national level in crises such as avian flu or mad cow.

For Juan José Badiola, director of the Laboratory of Encephalopathies and Emerging Communicable Diseases at the University of Zaragoza, "it is not yet justified to declare an international alarm when the number of coronavirus cases registered in other countries except China is still small." For this reason, although he prefers to be cautious in a world as globalized as the current one - in which it is difficult to rule out the risk of contagion -, he is "moderately optimistic" and explains that "it seems unlikely" that this new disease - which It is also known as Wuhan pneumonia, after the city where it originated - reaches the level of a pandemic.

"China has taken extremely drastic measures. I don't remember entire cities being closed before or confining nearly 40 million people in a geographical area for health reasons. The country's authorities are acting in a very responsible way. I think that goes to be the reason why they prevent the spread of the coronavirus to other countries," he says.