“The specter of multiple famines looms. World Food Program Executive Director David Beasley said the U.N. food agency helps nearly 100 million people on any given day and unless we can keep those essential operations going, the health pandemic will soon be followed by a hunger pandemic.

Addressing the meeting on Thursday, Xi said the spread of the virus overseas has not been effectively curbed yet and cluster cases were reported in a few areas in China, posing considerable uncertainty to the epidemic control.