For US-China groups, the adversary is COVID-19 – not a country

As top Chinese doctors in Wuhan detailed best practices from their battle against the coronavirus, about 300 American health experts – including a dozen from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) – listened intently by videoconference.

“During the early stage of the outbreak, you can … never imagine how the patients rushed the hospital,” Dr. Peng Zhiyong, intensive care unit director at Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, told the U.S. scientists, hospital chiefs, and public health officials.

It was mid-March. The United States had fewer than 50 COVID-19 deaths and 2,000 confirmed cases, a number that would soon balloon. China had been fighting the outbreak for months. But such direct information sharing between Chinese and American practitioners was unexpectedly limited, said organizer Li Lu.

“I was surprised,” said Mr. Li, the Seattle-based investor and philanthropist who arranged the event. Worsening U.S.-China tensions and a raging blame