Cover-ups and mess-ups in Wuhan
Three recently published articles point to a cover-up โ or at best a mess-up โ in Wuhan, which delayed reporting of the emerging coronavirus outbreak to Chinaโs Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), wasting valuable weeks in the early days of the epidemic.
In the Washington Post, scholar Dali Yang writes:
Why did Chinaโs CDC system, once touted as among the worldโs best disease control programs, fail to help contain the virus early on?
โฆAccording to Fรฉng Zijiร n ๅฏๅญๅฅ, deputy director general of the China CDC, the direct reporting system was โnot activated that expeditiouslyโ [by the Wuhan Health Commission or WHC].
Two separateย sourcesย [links in Chinese] reveal that Gฤo Fรบ ้ซ็ฆ [director general of Chinaโs CDC] himself was the real sentinel of the coronavirus outbreak. In the evening of December 30, Gao Fu noticed from scanning group-chats that the WHC had just issued two internal notices on atypical pneumonia cases. Alarmed that such information had not been submitted to the national reporting system, he called the Wuhan CDC head and learned that the number of cases was well above the threshold for reporting. Troubled by what he heard โ and didnโt hear โ Gao immediately alerted the National Health Commission (NHC) leadership. The following day, Decemeber 31, the NHC dispatched a national team of experts to Wuhan to investigateโฆ
What ensued in Wuhan has received enormous coverage. As Wuhan and Hubei political leaders met in Wuhan for annual meetings,ย WHC kept the number of the infected artificially low, and repeatedly downplayed the risks of contagion. Wuhan officials also pushed ahead with large public gatherings ahead of the Lunar New Year, which helped spread the virus.
Thereโs more detail in an article from Caixin published yesterday and swiftly censored. In brief: ย
On December 24, a Wuhan hospital sent a virus sampleย to the WHC. It was sequenced on December 27, but on January 1, an official from the Hubei Health Commission ordered the destruction of the virus sample, and for no information about it to be leaked.
A separate report from Caijing, also now deletedย from the Chinese internet, features an interview with a member of the second team of experts dispatched to Wuhan on January 8. This was prior to Dr. Zhลng Nรกnshฤnโs ้ๅๅฑฑ confirmation of the diseaseโs human to human transmission on January 20. The piece reveals that the group, which visited six hospitals in the area and met with local health officials, was deliberately kept in the dark about infected medical staff, effectively preventing earlier public confirmation that the disease was transmissible between humans.
We have archived copies of both censored articles hereย (in Chinese). ย
โJeremy Goldkorn
