Timeline: The early days of China's coronavirus outbreak and cover-up

[kankan326]

they tried to cover things up and in the process lost two to three crucial weeks for the rest of the world. People were flying out of China with the virus without anyone knowing about it.

You have misunderstanding about the virus. To be honest, when the virus was found and identified in a 10 million population city, it is already too late to stop it. This virus has no symptom carriers and long window time. It is bound to spread to entire world. Two weeks earlier may be helpful for China. I mean less loss. But not for the west countries. Who have two months advanced alarm.

There is no cover up. Chinese government acted slowly for two reasons. 1,Researching the unknown virus needs time. 2,Bureaucracy struture for dealing with highly infectious diseases is not very efficient.

 

[Thamizh Puli]

frankly, let us not spend any energy on blaming (like other countries blaming China) or cya (like is China is trying).

Good to hear China is succeeding in stopping further infections. Best next step is for them (China) to put their significant manufacturing capability to produce necessary things and supply to the world as needed.

Countries like Pakistan and India just simply do not have the resources to cope with such massive issues. China should with them as needed and not try to make this another way to gain influence (with India) or tighten grip (with Pakistan). Least they can do

Simple things like announcing complete debt forgivance for Pakistan will add credibility to both China and Pakistani leadership in comforting the populace.

In case of India, I think the Indian govt is just beginning the lockdowns. China should provide guidance based on its wuhan experience on all matters of lockdowns

 

[LeGenD]

Your politicians were gloating back in January, and now they want to hold someone other than themselves responsible. Take responsibility for your own incompetence and idiotic leadership. I understand that morons such as yourself may have difficulty doing so, but try.

Agree with this.

My take on this matter: https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/sincere-apologies-to-the-chinese-friends.657472/#post-12157616

Timeline of the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic in November 2019 – January 2020 - Wikipedia

Pandemic chronology[edit]
17 November 2019[edit]
The original case of the novel coronavirus emerged on 17 November 2019 according to official Chinese government sources, but was not recognized at that time.[8][9][10]

1 December[edit]
The first known patient started experiencing symptoms on 1 December 2019. He had not been to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market of Wuhan. No epidemiological link could be found between this case and later cases.[11][12][13]

8–18 December[edit]
Between 8 and 18 December 2019, seven cases later diagnosed with novel coronavirus were documented; two of them were linked with the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market; five were not.[14]

12 December[edit]
Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported in a broadcast airing on 12 January 2020 that a "new viral outbreak was first detected in the city of Wuhan, China, on 12 December 2019."[15]

21 December[edit]
Chinese epidemiologists with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CCDC) published an article on 20 January 2020 stating that the first cluster of patients with "pneumonia of an unknown cause" had been identified on 21 December 2019.[16]

24 December[edit]
First publicly reported collection of virus sample from patient for genetic sequencing.[17][18][19]

25 December[edit]
Report of medical staffs in two hospitals in Wuhan suspected to be infected and were being isolated around 25 December.[20]

26 December[edit]
On 26 December 2019, a laboratory identified the coronavirus from the sample collected on 24 December as to be most closely related to a bat SARS-like coronavirus.[18]

27 December[edit]
On 27 December 2019, almost complete genetic sequencing of the previous sample have been finished and shared to Institute of Pathogen Biology, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College (CAMS&PUMC).[18]

29 December[edit]
According to a CCDC publication on 31 January 2020, the facts leading up to the identification of the 2019-nCoV were as follows, "On 29 December 2019, a hospital in Wuhan admitted four individuals with pneumonia and recognized that all four had worked in the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, which sells live poultry, aquatic products, and several kinds of wild animals to the public. The hospital reported this occurrence to the CCDC, which led Wuhan CCDC staff to initiate a field investigation with a retrospective search for pneumonia patients potentially linked to the market. The investigators found additional patients linked to the market, and on 30 December, health authorities from Hubei Province reported this cluster to CCDC. The following day, CCDC sent experts to Wuhan to support the investigation and control effort. Samples from these patients were obtained for laboratory analyses."[21]

30 December[edit]
On 30 December 2019, genetic sequencing report of the pathogen of a patient indicated inaccurately the discovery of Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS coronavirus) in the test result.[18] After receiving the test result, multiple doctors in Wuhan shared the information via internet, including Dr. Li Wenliang, an ophthalmologist at Wuhan Central Hospital, who posted a warning to alumni from his medical school class via a WeChat online forum that a cluster of seven patients treating within the ophthalmology department had been unsuccessfully treated for symptoms of viral pneumonia and diagnosed with SARS.[22][23][18] Because these patients did not respond to traditional treatments, they were quarantined in an ER department of the Wuhan Central Hospital.[24] In the WeChat forum, Li posted that this cluster of patients appeared to be infected by SARS. Dr. Li posted a snippet of an RNA analysis finding "SARS coronavirus" and extensive bacteria colonies in a patient's airways according to a chat transcript that he and other chat members later shared online. Dr. Li contracted this coronavirus from a patient he treated, was hospitalized on 12 January 2020 and died on 6 February 2020.[25] Due to public outcry directed to the CCP outlets retracted original reports, while international news agents corrected reports published on the 6th stating the death on 7th. The official date of death was later announced as 7 February 2020.[26] Dr. Li is widely known for the statement he gave before his death exemplifying how the Chinese government botched the containment of the novel coronavirus, stating "There should be more than one voice in a healthy society."[22]

The Chinese National Health Commission announced later that evening that 8 doctors engaging in this WeChat forum had been arrested by Wuhan Police and charged with "llegal acts of fabricating, spreading rumors and disrupting social order."[27]

Wuhan medical authorities forbade doctors from making public announcements and ordered them to report cases internally.[28]

News of an outbreak of "pneumonia of unknown origin" started circulating on social media on the evening of 30 December 2019.[29][30][31] The social media reports stated that 27 patients in Wuhan—most of them stall holders at the Huanan Seafood Market—had been treated for the mystery illness.[31]

On the evening of 30 December 2019, an "urgent notice on the treatment of pneumonia of unknown cause" was issued by the Wuhan Municipal Health Committee on its Weibo social media account.[32][33] It was reported that since the beginning of December, there had been "a successive series of patients with unexplained pneumonia"—27 suspected cases in total, seven of which were in critical condition and 18 were stable, two of which were on the verge of being discharged soon.[32] The Wuhan Municipal Health Committee reported to the WHO that 27 people had been diagnosed with pneumonia of unknown cause.[33] Most were stallholders from the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, seven of whom were in critical condition. The Wuhan Municipal Health Commission also made a public announcement regarding the situation.[34]

Early investigations into the cause of the pneumonia ruled out seasonal flu, SARS, MERS and bird flu.[35][36]

Hong Kong Secretary for Food and Health Sophia Chan Siu-chee announced after an urgent night-time meeting with officials and experts, "[any suspected cases] including the presentation of fever and acute respiratory illness or pneumonia, and travel history to Wuhan within 14 days before onset of symptoms, we will put the patients in isolation."[31]

31 December[edit]
On 31 December 2019, an "urgent notice on the treatment of pneumonia of unknown cause" was issued to the Wuhan Municipal Health Center.[37]

As a result of the official announcement of the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan immediately tightened their inbound screening processes.[38][39]

Qu Shiqian, a vendor at the Huanan Seafood Market, said government officials had disinfected the premises on 31 December 2019 and told stallholders to wear masks. Qu said he had only learnt of the pneumonia outbreak from media reports. "Previously I thought they had flu," he said. "It should be not serious. We are fish traders. How can we get infected?"[31]

"Chinese state television reported that a team of experts from the National Health Commission had arrived in Wuhan on 31 December 2019 to lead the investigation, while the People's Daily said the exact cause remained unclear and it would be premature to speculate."[30][31][40] Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported that a team of senior health experts had been dispatched to the city of Wuhan and were reported to be "conducting relevant inspection and verification work."[32]

Tao Lina, a public health expert and former official with Shanghai's Centre for disease control and prevention, said, "I think we are [now] quite capable of killing it in the beginning phase, given China's disease control system, emergency handling capacity and clinical medicine support."[31]

1 January 2020[edit]
According to the Chinese state-sponsored Xinhua News, the Huanan Seafood Market was closed on 1 January 2020 for "regulation."[24] However, in the Consortium's report of 24 January 2020, it was stated that the Huanan Seafood Market had been closed on 1 January 2020 for "cleaning and disinfection.However the virus could only stay on surfaces for so long so this was useless"[38]

2 January[edit]
On 2 January, 41 admitted hospital patients in Wuhan, China, were confirmed to have contracted (laboratory-confirmed) the 2019-nCoV (Novel coronavirus); 27 (66%) patients had direct exposure to Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market.[11] All 41 patients were subsequently relocated from the hospital they had originally been diagnosed in to the Jinyintan Hospital in Wuhan, China.[11]

3 January[edit]
On 3 January 2020, Chinese scientists at the National Institute of Viral Disease Control and Prevention (IVDC) determined the genetic sequence of the novel β-genus coronaviruses (naming it '2019-nCoV') from specimens collected from patients in Wuhan, China, and three distinct strains were established.[21]

Health authorities in Wuhan reported 44 cases, a big jump from the 27 reported on Tuesday. Eleven of the 44 were seriously ill, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission said, although there had been no reported deaths to date. The health of the 121 close contacts of the cases was being monitored.[41]

On 3 January 2020, Dr. Li Wenliang, the Wuhan ophthalmologist who had been arrested for spreading false "rumors" on WeChat, was summoned to the Wuhan Public Security Bureau where he was told to sign an official confession and admonition letter promising to cease spreading false "rumors" regarding the coronavirus. In the letter, he was accused of "making false comments" that had "severely disturbed the social order". The letter stated, "We solemnly warn you: If you keep being stubborn, with such impertinence, and continue this illegal activity, you will be brought to justice—is that understood?" Dr. Li signed the confession writing: "Yes, I understand."[23] Li would later be supported e.g. in a blog run by China's Supreme People's Court on 28 January 2020.[42] On 7 February 2020, Chinese state-sponsored news reported that Dr. Li had died from complications arising from his infection to the Wuhan coronavirus only to later delete the post and report Dr. Li as being in critical condition.[43] He was subsequently confirmed the same day as having regrettably indeed deceased.[44] Dr. Li is now being heralded as a whistleblower who exposed the Chinese government's early efforts to cover up the seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic which resulted in its rapid spread across China and the world.[22]

4 January[edit]
The head of the University of Hong Kong's Centre for Infection, Ho Pak-leung, warned that the city should implement the strictest possible monitoring system for a mystery new viral pneumonia that infected dozens of people on the mainland, as it was highly possible that the illness was spreading from human to human. The microbiologist also warned that there could be a surge in cases during the upcoming Chinese New Year. Ho said he hoped the mainland would release more details as soon as possible about the patients infected with the disease, such as their medical history, to help experts analyse the illness and to allow for more effective preventive measures to be put in place.[45]

The Singapore Ministry of Health said on Saturday, 4 January, that it had been notified of the first suspected case of the "mystery Wuhan virus" in Singapore, involving a three-year-old girl from China who had pneumonia and a travel history to the Chinese city of Wuhan.[46] On 5 January, the Singapore Ministry of Health released a press statement stating that the earlier suspected case was not linked to the pneumonia cluster in Wuhan and was also tested negative for the SARS and MERS-CoV.[47]

Chinese officials were criticized for failing to disclose any information about the "mysterious virus" that machine translations of official reports suggested may be caused by a new coronavirus.[41]

The WHO waited for China to release information about the "mysterious new pneumonia virus".[48] The United Nations agency activated its incident-management system at the country, regional and global level and was standing ready to launch a broader response if it was needed. The WHO's regional office in Manila said in Twitter posts Saturday.: "#China has reported to WHO regarding a cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan, Hubei Province.The Govt has also met with our country office, and updated @WHO on the situation. Govt actions to control the incident have been instituted and investigations into the cause are ongoing."[48]

The Wuhan Institute of Virology didn't respond to an emailed request for comment on the infectious source.[49]

5 January[edit]
The number of suspected cases reached 59 with seven in a critical condition. All were quarantined and local medical officials commenced the monitoring of 163 of their contacts. At this time, there had been no reported cases of human-to-human transmission or presentations in healthcare workers.[50][51]

6 January[edit]
On Monday, 6 January, the Wuhan health authorities announced they continued seeking the cause but had so far ruled out influenza, avian influenza, adenovirus, and coronaviruses SARS and MERS as the respiratory pathogen that had infected 59 people as of 5 January.[52]

7 January[edit]
Since the outburst of social media discussion of the mysterious pneumonia outbreak in Wuhan, China, Chinese authorities censored the hashtag #WuhanSARS and were now investigating anyone who was allegedly spreading misleading information about the outbreak on social media.[53]

The world continued to wait for China to disclose more information about what had triggered an unexplained pneumonia outbreak in Wuhan, China's tenth-largest city.[54]

"The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a travel notice Monday for travelers to Wuhan, Hubei province, China due to the cluster of cases of pneumonia of an unknown etiology…"[55]

8 January[edit]
Scientists in China announced the discovery of a new coronavirus.[56][57]

South Korea announced the first possible case of virus coming from China.[58] South Korea put a 36-year-old Chinese woman under isolated treatment amid concerns that she had brought back a form of viral pneumonia that had sickened dozens in mainland China and Hong Kong in the previous weeks. The unidentified woman, who worked for a South Korean company near capital Seoul, had experienced cough and fever since returning from a five-day trip to China on 30 December, the KCDC said in a press release. The woman had spent time in Wuhan, China, but had not visited the Huanan Seafood Market.

9 January[edit]
The WHO confirmed that the novel coronavirus had been isolated from one person who had been hospitalised.[59][60] On the same day, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control posted its first risk assessment.[61] The WHO also reported that Chinese authorities had acted swiftly,[59] identifying the novel coronavirus within weeks of the onset of the outbreak, with the total number of positively tested people being 41.[62] The first death from the virus occurred in a 61-year-old man who was a regular customer at the market. He had several significant medical conditions, including chronic liver disease, and died from heart failure and pneumonia. The incident was reported in China by the health commission via Chinese state media on 11 January.[63][64][65][66]

Chinese scientists reported on Chinese state broadcaster CCTV that they had found a new "coronavirus in 15 of 57 patients with the illness in the central city of Wuhan, saying it has been preliminarily identified as the pathogen for the outbreak".[15] The scientists announced that the current 'Wuhan Virus', a coronavirus, appears to not be as lethal as SARS. They reported that the new viral outbreak was first detected in the city of Wuhan on 12 December 2019.[15] Additionally, a total of 59 people have been identified as contracting the illness, seven patients had been in a critical condition at some stage, and no healthcare workers were reported as having been infected.[15]

10 January[edit]
The gene sequencing data of the isolated 2019-nCoV, a virus from the same family as the SARS coronavirus, was posted on Virological.org by researchers from Fudan University, Shanghai. A further three sequences from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, one from the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, and one from Jinyintan Hospital in Wuhan were posted to the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID) portal.[63][67][68][69] The same day, Public Health England issued its guidance.[61]

On 10 January 2020, Dr. Li Wenliang, Chinese ophthalmologist and coronavirus whistleblower, started having symptoms of a dry cough. On 12 January 2020, Dr. Wenliang started having a fever. He was admitted to the hospital on 14 January 2020. His parents also contracted the coronavirus (presumably from Dr. Wenliang) and were admitted to the hospital with him. Dr. Wenliang tested negative several times for the coronavirus until finally testing positive on 30 January 2020.[23]

First two patients in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China attend University of Hong Kong-Shenzhen Hospital.[70]

11 January[edit]
The first two patients in Shenzhen city transferred into negative pressure room in Third People's Hospital of Shenzhen City due to matching lab test result, symptoms, and epidemiology and are being listed as suspected cases. The cases was not confirmed at the time, because requirement from the Chinese government at the time was that first case in each individual cities need to be submitted to provincial CDC, verified by national CDC, and then evaluated and confirmed by a specific diagnostic team in national CDC.[70]

11–12 January[edit]
In China, more than 700 close contacts of the 41 confirmed cases, including more than 400 healthcare workers, had been monitored, with no new cases reported in China since 5 January.[36][50][63][71] The WHO published initial guidance on travel advice, testing in the laboratory and medical investigation.[63]

13 January[edit]
The USCDC announced that the genome had been posted on the NIH genetic sequence database, GenBank.[72] On the same day, Thailand witnessed the first confirmed case of 2019-nCoV, the first outside China.[73] The affected 61-year-old Chinese woman, who is a resident of Wuhan, had not visited the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, but was noted to have been to other markets. She had arrived in Bangkok on 8 January.[74]

14 January[edit]
On 14 January, two of the 41 confirmed cases in Wuhan were reported to include a married couple, raising the possibility of human-to-human transmission.[74][75]

15 January[edit]
A second death occurred in a 69-year-old man in China on 15 January.[76][77] The WHO published a protocol on diagnostic testing for 2019-nCoV, developed by a virology team from Charité Hospital.[76]

16 January[edit]
On 16 January, the WHO was alerted by Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare that a 30-year-old male Chinese national had tested positive to 2019-nCoV during a hospital stay between 10 and 15 January. He had not visited the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, but possibly had close contact with an affected person in Wuhan.[78][79]

17 January[edit]
On 17 January, Thailand's second confirmed case was reported in a 74-year-old woman who arrived in Bangkok on a flight from Wuhan.[80][81] The number of laboratory-confirmed cases rose to 45 in China.[82]

Yang Xiaobo, head of the Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, died of pneumonia caused by the virus on 17 January.[83]

18 January[edit]
After the first 41 laboratory-confirmed cases were identified on January 2, 2020,[11] Chinese officials announced no new cases for the next 16 days, then reported 17 additional laboratory-confirmed cases, three of which were in critical condition. This brought the number of laboratory-confirmed cases in China to 62. The patients' ages ranged from 30 to 79. 19 were discharged and eight remain critical.[84]

On the same day, the Wuhan City government held an annual banquet in the Baibuting community celebrating the Chinese New Year with forty thousand families in attendance despite the officials' knowledge of the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus. They shared meals, plates and ate together.[85] On 21 January 2020 when Wuhan mayor Zhou Xianwang was asked on state television why this banquet was held even after the number of cases had risen to 312 he responded, "The reason why the Baibuting community continued to host the banquet this year was based on the previous judgment that the spread of the epidemic was limited between humans, so there was not enough warning."[28]

19 January[edit]
On 19 January, the first confirmed cases were reported in China, outside Wuhan, one in the southern province of Guangdong and two in Beijing.[86] Wuhan reported 136 additional laboratory-confirmed cases, bringing the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases in China to 201. A new death was also reported in Wuhan, bringing the total number of fatalities in China to three.[87][88]

20 January[edit]
Scientists from the China CDC identified three different strains of the 2019-nCoV confirming that the original Wuhan coronavirus had mutated into two additional strains.[16]

Chinese premier Li Keqiang urged decisive and effective efforts to prevent and control the epidemic.[89] First confirmed case reported in South Korea.[90] Beijing and Guangdong reported an additional three and thirteen laboratory-confirmed cases, respectively. Shanghai confirms its first case, bringing the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases in China to 218.[91][92] The investigation team from China's National Health Commission confirmed for the first time that the coronavirus can be transmitted between humans.[42] At least two people had become infected whilst living hundreds of miles from Wuhan.[93]

Five attendees of an as-yet-unnamed private international sales company meeting of 109 attendees, 94 from overseas, held from 20–22 January at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, Singapore were diagnosed with the Wuhan coronavirus upon returning home: one from Malaysia, two from South Korea and two from Singapore.[94][95] One of the attendees was from Wuhan, China. It was reported that the company held a buffet for their delegates. These four diagnoses were not reported until 5 February 2020.[96] The first laboratory-confirmed case in Singapore of an unrelated 67 year-old native of Wuhan was not reported until 23 January 2020.[97] These cases linked to the meeting were the first evidence that the Wuhan coronavirus had spread through human-to-human contact outside China, which the WHO has said is deeply concerning and could signal evidence of a much larger outbreak.[96] As of 5 February 2020, the sister of a Malaysian who attended the meeting had been infected and four more local staff in Singapore were confirmed as having virus symptoms.[96][98]

21 January[edit]
A total of 291 cases have now been reported across major cities in China, including Beijing and Shanghai. However, most patients are in Wuhan, the central city of 11 million at the heart of the outbreak.[42]

A report by the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial College London suggested there could be more than 1,700 infections. However, Gabriel Leung, the dean of medicine at the University of Hong Kong, put the figure closer to 1,300.[42]

After 300 confirmed diagnoses and 6 deaths, Chinese state media warned lower-level officials not to cover up the spread of a new coronavirus.[42] Officials declared that anyone who concealed new cases would "be nailed on the pillar of shame for eternity", the political body responsible for law and order said. Local Chinese officials initially withheld information about the epidemic from the public. It later vastly under-reported the number of people that had been infected, downplayed the risks and failed to provide timely information that experts say could have saved lives. In its commentary published online on Tuesday January 20, 2020, the Communist Party's Central Political and Legal Commission talked of China having learned a "painful lesson" from the SARS epidemic and called for the public to be kept informed. Deception, it warned, could "turn a controllable natural disaster into a man-made disaster".[42]

The Wuhan Municipal Health Commission reported at least 15 medical workers in Wuhan have also been infected with the virus, with one in a critical condition.[42]

WHO Situation Report 1:[99] (Please note that the WHO Situation Reports as official reportage stand on their own.)

Confirmed cases were reported in several new locations in China. Zhejiang province and Tianjin reported five and two laboratory-confirmed cases, respectively.[100][101] Guangdong reported three additional laboratory-confirmed cases.[102] Shanghai and Henan province reported an additional four and one laboratory-confirmed cases, respectively.[103] One laboratory-confirmed case was reported in Sichuan province, and Chongqing reported five laboratory-confirmed cases.[104][105] Shandong, Hunan, and Yunnan all reported one laboratory-confirmed case each.[106][107][108] Jiangxi reported two laboratory-confirmed cases.[109] The total number of laboratory-confirmed cases in China increased to 312 and the death toll increased to six.[104][110][111]

New cases were also reported outside of mainland China. Taiwan reported its first laboratory-confirmed case,[112] and the United States reported its first laboratory-confirmed case in the state of Washington, the first in North America.[113][114]

China's Wuhan Institute filed to patent the use of Gilead's remdesivir for the treatment of novel coronavirus.[115]​

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