Plea to put virus work above politics

US and China have no choice but to team up on pandemic, experts say

Despite US-China tensions in trade and other areas, scientists and doctors in the two countries agree that collaboration is a necessity to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We have to collaborate. I don't think it's a question of whether we want to or do not want to. There are some things where you can't let politics intrude, and this is certainly one of them," said Jonathan Fielding, a professor in the schools of public health and medicine at UCLA.

Fielding, who is among the many scientists and doctors in the US and China who have been using online platforms to hold virtual meetings, recently connected by video with Zhang Wenhong, head of Shanghai's COVID-19 clinical expert team, to exchange experiences.

"Not only have I learned a lot, I've really gotten a sense of the things that we can do together," Fielding said after the virtual meeting.

Whether it's research, vaccines, therapy or preparedness and response, Fielding said the two countries need to collaborate not just for themselves but also for other countries that have greater problems relating to population density or hygiene.

"For example, if we wind up with this pandemic rooting itself in India or in sub-Saharan Africa, we're going to need everybody to try and help figure it out," he said. "We have to do this not just because it's the nice thing to do but because it's an absolute necessity－or we're going to have such a terrible impact and burden of this kind of illness, and it's going to lead to so many millions of deaths."

Zhang, who is also a professor and head of the Center for Infectious Disease at Huashan Hospital of Fudan University in Shanghai, agreed, saying that the US and China "have more capability to invent a vaccine and anti-virus" by working together, because there are a lot of vulnerable people in the world now waiting for help.

The US-China collaboration has also extended to clinical testing for coronavirus. A recent example is a partnership between BGI Genomics, a Chinese genome-sequencing company, and business leaders in Kansas City, Kansas, and the University of Kansas Health System.

The group of business leaders had procured 50,000 test kits and necessary equipment from BGI, which handled much of the coronavirus testing in China.

Calling the partnership a "great model of innovative collaboration", Zhang Yongwei, vice-president of BGI Group, said more inquiries are coming in, and talks with multiple partners and governments across the US about additional lab solutions are taking place.

Zhang said there is great potential in expanding partnerships with the US, including working with clinical labs, government agencies, companies and nonprofit organizations that are focused on COVID-19 solutions for developing countries.

Comprehensive solution

The collaboration actually began during the initial outbreak in China. BGI developed a comprehensive solution, including test kits, lab automation and the sequences to enable fast large-scale testing to better understand and track the virus in China, Zhang said.

"Much of the technology used to analyze the coronavirus genome was done right here by our team in San Jose (California). These technologies are an essential part of our lab (in Wuhan)," he said.

According to Zhang, the BGI is developing a collaboration with the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. It also partnered with Intel and Lenovo to form the COVID-19 Research Alliance to better understand the virus' genome.

"Through this pandemic, we are reminded that diseases know no borders," said Zhang. "We believe that COVID-19 has spurred a new culture of scientific research on a global scale and cross-industry collaboration between Silicon Valley and global tech companies."