· The entire situation began on December 8, with the discovery of the first known case of an infected patient in Wuhan, a stall operator from the
. The number of infected people rose rapidly, reaching 27 people within a short period of time. Health professionals in Wuhan began suspecting in early December that this was an unknown infectious disease, not unlike the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).
· On December 30, the Wuhan Health Commission (武汉市卫建委) issued an order to hospitals, clinics and other healthcare units strictly prohibiting the release of any information about treatment of this new disease.
· As late as December 31, the government in Wuhan was still saying publicly that there were no cases of human-to-human transmission, and that no medical personnel had become infected.
· Meng Xin (孟昕), a researcher at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and his colleagues within one week had managed to: successfully isolate the disease, sequence the coronavirus genome (测完了序列), and confirmed the origin of the disease. In less than two weeks, they had developed test reagents and had distributed them to provincial CDCs, and they had reviewed anywhere from dozens to hundreds of specimens from Wuhan.
· Separately, Shanghai scientists were not far behind. According to a report in
Health News (健康报), the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center (上海市公共卫生临床中心) had isolated a new strain of coronavirus by January 5, within just 10 days of its receiving samples from patients in Wuhan on December 26, and scientists at the center had obtained the entire genome sequence.
· During a speech Xi delivered February 3, which was published by state media on Saturday, he said he gave instructions on fighting the virus as early as January 7.
· On January 11, China officially confirmed that this new coronavirus was the pathogen causing the Wuhan pneumonia epidemic, and it shared the new coronavirus gene sequence information with the WHO.
· Between January 12 to 16, the Wuhan Municipal Health Construction Commission announced that there were no new daily cases and no close contacts.
· Up to January 17, tourism authorities in Wuhan continued to launch the “Spring Festival Culture Benefitting the People Campaign” (春节文化惠民活动), issuing hundreds of thousands of free tickets to attractions in Wuhan in order to encourage tourists from all over the country to come to the area for sightseeing.
· Through to January 19, Baibuting Garden (武汉市百步亭社区), an area advertised as a model residential community in Wuhan, was still holding a Spring Festival banquet celebration for its 40,000 residents.
· Between January 12-19, there are no known official records that the Wuhan authorities actually met to discuss the ongoing virus outbreak. Their main focus was prioritizing the provincial and city-level meetings of the people’s congresses and political consultative conferences, the biggest local political meetings of the year. In all likelihood this is reason why, no new cases of the virus were reported – because a “harmonious” public opinion environment had to be created for the “two meetings.”
· Upon the conclusion of the provincial and city-level sessions of the “two meetings” that the authorities in Hubei province resumed reporting new disease cases, so that on the night of January 19 the number given suddenly rose to 136 new cases.
· On January 20, General Secretary Xi Jinping officially issued a notice on response and control of the outbreak.
· Even on January 21, the day after Xi Jinping’s instructions were conveyed nationwide on January 20, the provincial Party and government leadership went ahead with a grand Spring Festival Banquet in the Hongshan Assembly Hall.
· An order to lock down Wuhan city was issued at 2AM on January 23, but was not officially implemented until 10AM.