The first person known to have fallen ill due to the new virus was in Wuhan on 1 December 2019. A public notice on the outbreak was released by Wuhan health authority on 31 December; the initial notice informed Wuhan residents that there was no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the virus, that the disease is preventable and controllable, and that people can wear masks when going out. WHO was informed of the outbreak on the same day. On 7 January 2020, the Chinese Communist Party Politburo Standing Committee discussed COVID-19 prevention and control.
The Wuhan government, which announced a number of new measures such as cancelling the Chinese New Year celebrations, in addition to measures such as checking the temperature of passengers at transport terminals first introduced on 14 January. A quarantine was announced on 23 January 2020 stopping travel in and out of Wuhan. A group tasked with the prevention and control of the COVID-19 pandemic was established on 26 January, led by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang. The leading group decided to extend the Spring Festival holiday to contain the outbreak.
China Customs started requiring that all passengers entering and exiting China fill in an extra health declaration form from 26 January. The health declaration form was mentioned in China's Frontier Health and Quarantine Law, granting the customs rights to require it if needed. On 27 January, the General Office of the State Council of China, declared a nationwide extension on the New Year holiday and the postponement of the coming spring semester. The office extended the previously scheduled public holiday from 30 January, to 2 February, while it said school openings for the spring semester would be announced in the future.
Hong Kong's Chief Executive Carrie Lam declared an emergency at a press conference on 25 January, saying the government would close primary and secondary schools for two more weeks on top of the previously scheduled New Year holiday, pushing the date for school reopening to 17 February. Macau closed several museums and libraries, and prolonged the New Year holiday break to 11 February for higher education institutions and 10 February for others.
On 1 February 2020, Xinhua News reported that China's Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) had "asked procuratorates nationwide to fully play their role to create a favourable judicial environment in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic." This included severe punishments for those found guilty of dereliction of duty and the withholding of information for officials. Tougher charges were proscribed for commercial criminal activities such as increasing prices, profiteering along with the "production and sale of fake and shoddy protective equipment and medicines." Prosecuting actions against patients who deliberately spread the infection or refuse examination or compulsory isolation along with threats of violence against medical personnel were also urged. The statement also included urging to prosecute those found fabricating and spreading COVID-19-related information and also stressed "harshly punishing the illegal hunting of wildlife under state protection, as well as improving inspection and quarantine measures for fresh food and meat products."
On 23 January 2020, a quarantine on travel in and out of Wuhan was imposed in an effort to stop the spread of the virus out of Wuhan. Flights, trains, public buses, the metro system, and long-distance coaches were suspended indefinitely. Large-scale gatherings and group tours were also suspended. By 24 January 2020, a total of 15 cities in Hubei, including Wuhan, were placed under similar quarantine measures.
Before the quarantine began, some in Wuhan questioned the reliability of the figures from the Chinese government as well as the government response, with some calling for quarantine, and a post also showed sick people and three dead bodies covered in white sheets on the floor of a hospital on 24 January, although many such posts in Weibo about the epidemic have since been deleted. Due to quarantine measures, Wuhan residents rushed to stockpile essential goods, food, and fuel; prices rose significantly. 5,000,000 people left Wuhan, with 9,000,000 left in the city. The city of Shantou in Guangdong declared a partial lockdown on 26 January, though this was reversed two hours later. Local authorities in Beijing and several other major cities, including Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Shenzhen, announced on the same day that these cities will not impose a lockdown similar to those in Hubei province.
By 6 February 2020, a total of four Zhejiang cities—Wenzhou, Hangzhou, Ningbo, and Taizhou—were under the "passport" system, allowing only one person per household to leave their home every two days. These restrictions apply to over 30 million people.
A speciality hospital named Huoshenshan Hospital has been constructed as a countermeasure against the outbreak and to better quarantine the patients. Wuhan City government had demanded that a state-owned enterprise construct such a hospital "at the fastest speed" comparable to that of the SARS outbreak in 2003. Upon opening, the speciality hospital had 1,000 beds and took up 30,000 square metres. The hospital is modelled after the Xiaotangshan Hospital , which was fabricated for the SARS outbreak of 2003, itself built in only seven days.
On 24 January 2020, the authority announced that they would convert an empty building in Huangzhou District, Huanggang to a 1,000-bed hospital named Dabie Mountain Regional Medical Centre. Works began the next day by 500 personnel and the building began accepting patients on 28 January 2020 at 10:30 pm. In Wuhan, authorities seized dormitories, offices and hospitals to create more beds for patients. On 25 January authorities announced plans for Leishenshan Hospital, a second speciality hospital, with a capacity of 1,600 beds; operations are scheduled to start by 6 February. The hospital opened on 8 February.
By 16 February 2020, 217 teams of a total of 25,633 medical workers from across China went to Wuhan and other cities in Hubei to help open up more facilities and treat patients. A total of 14 temporary hospitals were constructed in China in total, but all were reported to have closed after the crisis was determined be under control on 10 March 2020.[1]
The early response by city authorities was criticised as prioritising a control of information that might be unfavorable for local officials over public safety, and China was also criticised for cover-ups and downplaying the initial discovery and severity of the outbreak. By the time China had informed the WHO of the new coronavirus on 31 December 2019, The New York Times reported that the government was still keeping "its own citizens in the dark".[2][3] Observers have attributed this to the censorship institutional structure of the country's press and Internet, exacerbated by China's paramount leader Xi Jinping's crackdown on independent oversight such as journalism and social media that left senior officials with inaccurate information on the outbreak and "contributed to a prolonged period of inaction that allowed the virus to spread".[2][3][4][5]
A group of eight medical personnel, including Li Wenliang, an ophthalmologist from Wuhan Central Hospital who in late December posted warnings on a new coronavirus strain akin to SARS, were taken into custody by Wuhan police and threatened with prosecution for "spreading rumours" for likening it to SARS.[6][7] Li Wenliang later died of the disease on 7 February, and was widely hailed as a whistleblower in China, but some of the trending hashtags on Weibo such as "Wuhan government owes Dr Li Wenliang an apology" and "We want freedom of speech" were blocked.[8][9][10] His death widespread public anger in the aftermath, in what has been described as "one of the biggest outpourings of online criticism of the government in years," was not a topic that was permitted for coverage.[11]
On 20 January, Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping made his first public remark on the outbreak and spoke of "the need for the timely release of information".[12] One day later, the CPC Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, the most powerful political organ in China overseeing legal enforcement and the police, wrote "self-deception will only make the epidemic worse and turn a natural disaster that was controllable into a man-made disaster at great cost," and "only openness can minimise panic to the greatest extent." The commission then added, "anyone who deliberately delays and hides the reporting of cases out of self-interest will be nailed on a pillar of shame for eternity."[13][14] Xi Jinping later also instructed authorities "to strengthen the guidance of public opinions", language which some viewed as a call for censorship after social media users became increasingly critical and angry at the government.[15] On 30 January, China's Supreme Court, delivered a rare rebuke against the country's police forces, calling the "unreasonably harsh crackdown on online rumours" as undermining public trust.[16]
As part of the central government's "bifurcated approach to diffuse discontent", citizens were permitted to criticise local officials so long as they did not "question the basic legitimacy of the party".[17] The Cyberspace Administration (CAC) declared its intent to foster a "good online atmosphere," with CAC notices sent to video platforms encouraging them to "not to push any negative story, and not to conduct non-official livestreaming on the virus."[18] Censorship has been observed being applied on news articles and social media posts deemed to hold negative tones about COVID-19 and the governmental response, including posts mocking Xi Jinping for not visiting areas of the epidemic,[19] an article that predicted negative effects of the epidemic on the economy, and calls to remove local government officials.[5][8][20][21] While censorship had been briefly relaxed giving a "window of about two weeks in which Chinese journalists were able to publish hard-hitting stories exposing the mishandling of the novel coronavirus by officials", since then private news outlets were reportedly required to use "planned and controlled publicity" with the authorities' consent.[8][22]
China's response to the virus, in comparison to the 2003 SARS outbreak, has been praised by some foreign leaders[23] and analysts.[24] UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres stated on February that it was clear "there is a massive effort that is made by China in order to contain the disease and avoid its propagation" and added the effort was "remarkable".[25][26] U.S. President Trump thanked Chinese leader Xi Jinping "on behalf of the American People" on 24 January on Twitter, stating that "China has been working very hard to contain Coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency."[27] Germany's health minister Jens Spahn, in an interview on Bloomberg TV, said with comparison to the Chinese response to SARS in 2003: "There's a big difference to SARS. We have a much more transparent China. The action of China is much more effective in the first days already." He also praised the international co-operation and communication in dealing with the virus.[28][29] In a letter to Xi, Singaporean president Halimah Yacob applauded China's "swift, decisive and comprehensive measures" in safeguarding the health of the Chinese people, while prime minister Lee Hsien Loong remarked of "China's firm and decisive response" in communities affected by the virus.[30] Similar sentiments were expressed by Russian president Vladimir Putin.[31]
At a Sunday mass at St. Peter's Square in Vatican City on 26 January, Pope Francis praised "the great commitment by the Chinese community that has already been put in place to combat the epidemic" and commenced a closing prayer for "the people who are sick because of the virus that has spread through China".[32] Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates defended the nation's COVID-19 response amidst criticism from the Trump administration, saying "China did a lot of things right at the beginning"[33] and that "they got to zero" with "an effective lockdown".[34]
Papers from academic journals and publishers such as Science Magazine,[35] Nature,[36] The Lancet,[37][38] and Karger[39] have regarded China's measures to contain COVID-19 in its own country to be effective. A study in March published in Science Magazine concluded that the Wuhan travel ban and national emergency response there may have prevented more than 700,000 COVID-19 cases outside the city.[40]
China COVID-19 cover-up refers to the efforts of the Government of China and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to hide information about the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the origins of SARS-CoV-2. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the Chinese government has made efforts to clamp down on discussion and reporting about it, fund and control further research into the virus's origins, and promote fringe theories about the virus.[41] The Chinese government has stated that no cover-up regarding the COVID-19 outbreak has taken place.[42]
As COVID-19 began spreading within China between December 2019 - February 2020, Chinese authorities prevented doctors and laboratories from sharing information about the outbreak, including admonishing frontline healthcare professionals and perceived whistleblowers, most notably, Li Wenliang.[43][44] By 27 December 2019, the local government knew there was an outbreak of pneumonia. At least one healthcare worker had already been infected, which, under international healthcare regulations, requires a country to report an outbreak to the World Health Organization (WHO), as it is considered proof of person-to-person spread. However, China did not report the outbreak to the WHO at that time. Instead, the WHO noticed a media report of the outbreak on 31 December. On 3 January, when China acknowledged the outbreak to the WHO, it called it "viral pneumonia of unknown cause", even though they had the complete genetic sequence at that time. It also said that there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission, even though 20 cases had already been confirmed among medical workers.[45]
By 27 December 2019, a lab called Vision Medicals had most of the sequence of the new virus. On 2 January 2020, Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) decoded the entire sequence. By 5 January, two more labs had obtained the sequence, including the Shanghai Public Clinical Health Center led by Zhang Yongzhen, who submitted the sequence to the United States government's GenBank database. On 11 January, Zhang's lab published the sequence on virological.org. Three people stated that this angered the Chinese CDC, and the Shanghai government temporarily closed Zhang's lab.[46][47] Zhang said that the closure was not retaliation for publishing the genome, but instead was to improve the lab's biosafety protocols.[48] On 24 January the lab was accredited to research the novel coronavirus.[49] On 12 January, the WIV and the other labs released their sequences.
Li Wenliang was an ophthalmologist at Wuhan Central Hospital. On 30 December 2019, he had seen seven cases of a virus he thought looked like SARS. He sent a message to fellow doctors in a chat group warning them to wear protective clothing to avoid infection. He and seven other doctors were later told to come to the Public Security Bureau and told to sign a letter. The letter accused them of "making false comments" that would "disturb the social order". Wang Guangbao, who is a Chinese surgeon and science writer, later said that by 1 January, people in medical circles thought that a SARS-like virus might be spreading, but the police warning discouraged them from talking openly about it.[50] Wenliang later died of the virus, and China later apologized to his family and overturned the warning in the letter.[51][52]
A nurse said that by early January, doctors and nurses had noticed that they too were getting sick. Hospital administrators made long calls to the City Government and Health Commission. However, medical personnel were not allowed to wear protective gear, because it would cause panic. Health and governance experts place much of the blame on higher-level officials, as local authorities in China can be punished for reporting bad news.[53]
As of December 2020, around a year after the outbreak, at least 47 journalists were currently in detention in China for their reporting on the initial coronavirus outbreak.[54]
Chinese citizen journalist Chen Qiushi started reporting on the outbreak from Wuhan on 23 January 2020. He disappeared on 6 February. On 24 September, a friend said he had been found. He was being supervised by "a certain government department", but would not face prosecution for the moment because he had not contacted opposition groups.[55][56]
Fang Bin is a Chinese citizen journalist who broadcast images of Wuhan during the outbreak several times on social media. He was arrested several times during February 2020. The last arrest was on 9 February, and as of September 2020, he had not been seen in public since.[56]
Li Zehua was reporting on the outbreak from Wuhan in February 2020. On 26 February, he was caught by the authorities after livestreaming part of the chase. On 22 April, he returned to social media with a brief statement in which he quoted a proverb that the human mind was "prone to err." A friend said he may have been told by authorities to make the statement.[57][58]
Another citizen journalist, Zhang Zhan, stopped sharing information on social media in May 2020. On 28 December, she was sentenced to 4 years in prison. According to one of her attorneys, she was convicted of "picking quarrels and provoking trouble".[59]
Timothy P.H. Lin and his collaborators said in May 2020 that there are doubts on some statistics from China (i.e. death tallies) because of alleged political censorship; however, come to the conclusion that due to the lack of any known deaths of Hong Kong or Taiwan residents in Mainland China, which would be newsworthy, that the official numbers do not form a particularly large discrepancy from the actual death numbers.[60]
Two universities in China published and then removed pages saying that papers about COVID-19 needed extra scrutiny before publication, in what British newspaper The Guardian suggested might be "part of a wider attempt to control the narrative surrounding the pandemic".[61] A preprint from the American Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center stated that scientists in China published and then took down COVID-19 sequences; some scientists said that this suggested "China has something to hide about the origins of the pandemic", but others countered that the information was later republished.[62] David Robertson, a virologist from the University of Glasgow UK, said he thinks the Chinese Communist Party wants the origin of SARS-CoV-2 to be a location outside of China.[63]
In January 2020, Chinese biomechanics researcher Botao Xiao released a paper saying that the virus probably came from a lab leak. He withdrew the paper after Chinese officials insisted that no lab accident had taken place.[64] In February 2021, the head of an international WHO team investigating the origins of COVID-19 said the disease is “extremely unlikely” to have come from a laboratory.[65]
According to CNN, Fudan University in China published a document describing how research into COVID-19 should be vetted. All research needs approval, and research into its origin needs extra scrutiny, with the document stating that "academic papers about tracing the origin of the virus must be strictly and tightly managed." After CNN contacted the China Education ministry's science and technology department about the notice, it was taken down. A Chinese researcher, who insisted on anonymity for fear of retaliation, said he thought the document was part of a "coordinated attempt to control the narrative" about the virus. According to The Guardian, which also described the episode, research on other medical topics is not subject to similar scrutiny.[66][67]
On 30 December 2020, the Associated Press reported that China was still controlling domestic research into the virus under direct orders from Chinese Communist Party general secretary Xi Jinping. Researchers who are authorized to investigate the virus often work closely with the military, and their research must be approved by a task force under the management of China's State Council. An order by the State Council, marked "not to be made public", said that scientific publication should be orchestrated like "a game of chess", and people who do not comply shall be held accountable.[41][68]
The World Health Organization investigation into the source of COVID-19 was delayed over a year by negotiations over the arrangements. When the WHO-convened study was conducted during 14 January – 10 February 2021, the Chinese authorities only provided limited access.[69][70] The Chinese authorities did not share a specific list of early cases with the international team. Instead, this information was shared with a Chinese team. The Chinese team then gave the international team a summary.[71] With the line-by-line list of individual cases, the team could have contacted each person and tried to determine where they might have become infected.[72][73][74] Members of the WHO team have reiterated that the Chinese team "was and still is reluctant to share raw data (for instance, on the 174 cases identified in December 2019), citing concerns over patient confidentiality".[75]
China has closed access to an abandoned mine shaft which once contained bats who were infected by RaTG13, the closest known viral relative of COVID-19. Two researchers managed to get samples from the shaft, but their samples were confiscated. Three teams from the Associated Press were followed by Chinese security agents.[41][76]
In June 2021, a researcher at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center found 13 genome sequences that were deleted from the Sequence Read Archive following a request by researchers at Wuhan University. They were originally published by a Chinese researcher and represent samples collected near the start of the pandemic. The sequences are more distantly related to bats than the active variants of COVID-19. Researchers do not believe this finding supports either a natural or lab origin.[77][78][79]
China has refused to allow an independent investigation into the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.[80]
After the Australian government called for an independent inquiry into the origins of COVID-19, Chinese ambassador Cheng Jingye said that Australia was treading a "dangerous path". Shortly afterwards, the Chinese government banned beef imports from Australia's four biggest abattoirs. It also put a tariff of over 80% on Australian barley and informally banned imports of Australian coal.[81][82] The Chinese government later agreed to an inquiry. An article in The Economist speculated that an inquiry "might reveal China doing more to suppress information about early infections than to quash the outbreak itself".[81]
On 25 August 2021, a US intelligence review of the source of covid was pending. China warned of a "counterattack" against any country that "baselessly accuses China" of being responsible for the origin of COVID-19.[83]
On 15 July 2021, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the COVID-19 lab leak hypothesis had been prematurely discarded by the World Health Organization. He proposed a second phase of WHO investigation, which he said should take a closer look at the lab leak idea, and asked China to be "transparent" and release relevant data.[84] On 22 July 2021, Zeng Yixin of China's National Health Commission (NHC) said that China would not cooperate with the second phase, denouncing it as "shocking" and "arrogant".[85][84] The United States criticised China's position on the follow-up origin probe as "irresponsible" and "dangerous".[86] Science journalist Jon Cohen said that "[China's] relative openness to collaboration during the joint mission seems to have evaporated".[87]
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