FAKE NEWS | Nothing to Worry About, Says Wuhan Official From Inside Biohazard Suit

By Shaun Tan

Founder, Editor-in-Chief, and Staff Writer

27/1/2020

WUHAN – Wearing a biohazard suit that covered his entire body, his voice partially muffled by the glass seal around his face, an official from Wuhan’s mayor’s office tried to reassure an anxious public that the coronavirus outbreak is under control.

“There’s nothing to worry about,” the official, Bu Zhidao, told reporters yesterday, the air of the room heavy with the smell of disinfectant. “You can all go about your lives as normal. Everything is fine.”

Whilst he noted the growing concern about the disease, Bu pointed out that the coronavirus was not as deadly as SARS, the respiratory virus that swept southern China between 2002 and 2003. “Furthermore,” he said, “infection can be asymptomatic for up to 14 days, so even if you do happen to catch it, you’ll probably feel fine until much later! There will therefore be no need to cancel Spring Festival activities.”

Bu added that he now expected the disease to spread more slowly in Wuhan since 5 million of the 14 million people there had managed to escape the city before it was quarantined, leaving it much less congested.

Believed to have originated through animal-to-human contact at the Huanan Wholesale Seafood Market in Wuhan, the virus can be transmitted from one human to another, and has since spread to other Asian countries, Europe, and North America, infecting some 4,515 people and killing 106. Symptoms of the disease include a fever, cough, and breathing difficulties.

Exhaling heavily through the self-contained breathing apparatus in his suit, Bu appeared flustered when a reporter asked the reason for his strange apparel. “Oh, this?” he replied, “It’s nothing, I just feel a bit chilly today, that’s all, haha!” before dissolving into a bout of nervous laughter.

“The disease has been contained,” he assured reporters when he had collected himself. “There is no cause for alarm.”

The press conference was then cut short when someone in the room coughed, prompting Bu to panic and flee into an underground bunker.