On the Saturday @WSJ front page: A deep-deep-dive on who knew what when in the early days of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan. Masterfully done by @JNBPage @xinwenfan @natashakhanhk @wangfanfan @Lingling_Wei @patrick1barta and others. Thread to follow.
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@WSJ @JNBPage @xinwenfan @natashakhanhk @wangfanfan @Lingling_Wei @patrick1barta The story begins with Wei Guixian, a 57-year-old seafood merchant in Wuhan's Huanan market, who became one of the first to get sick, on Dec. 10. She thought she had a common cold, but by Dec. 18, she was on the brink of death.
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@WSJ @JNBPage @xinwenfan @natashakhanhk @wangfanfan @Lingling_Wei @patrick1barta Ms. Wei first sought help at a small private clinic across the street from her home. For two days, she took antibiotics through an IV drip. “It’s pretty effective for ordinary colds."
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@WSJ @JNBPage @xinwenfan @natashakhanhk @wangfanfan @Lingling_Wei @patrick1barta With her condition worsening dramatically, Ms. Wei showed up at the ER of another hospital on Dec. 16 but was sent home. She only got a bed in a respiratory ward there after two days, when one of her daughters made an appointment with a specialist.
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@WSJ @JNBPage @xinwenfan @natashakhanhk @wangfanfan @Lingling_Wei @patrick1barta Three days later, on Dec. 21, one doctor told Ms. Wei that two other workers from Huanan market were also suffering severe illnesses, and were at another ER in Wuhan. “Your illness is really serious," she was told.
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@WSJ @JNBPage @xinwenfan @natashakhanhk @wangfanfan @Lingling_Wei @patrick1barta The head of ER at Ms. Wei's hospital in Wuhan was initially unperturbed by the burst of cases at Huanan market, he said in an interview. “Back then, I wasn’t afraid at all—I was even relaxed…The early stages made us drop our guard.”
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@WSJ @JNBPage @xinwenfan @natashakhanhk @wangfanfan @Lingling_Wei @patrick1barta Meantime Dr. Ai Fen, head of ER at another Wuhan hospital, connected the dots after seeing two patients with similar symptoms on Dec. 16 and 27, she said in an interview. By Dec. 28, she counted seven unexplained pneumonia cases, four tied to the market.
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@WSJ @JNBPage @xinwenfan @natashakhanhk @wangfanfan @Lingling_Wei @patrick1barta Dr. Ai informed the hospital’s leadership on Dec. 29, and it notified China's CDC, which had heard similar reports from elsewhere in Wuhan, Dr. Ai said. Another doctor at another Wuhan hospital raised a similar alarm on Dec. 27, state media later reported.
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@WSJ @JNBPage @xinwenfan @natashakhanhk @wangfanfan @Lingling_Wei @patrick1barta On Dec. 30, Dr. Ai got lab test results for her patients. It said “SARS coronavirus." Terrified, she shared the lung scans with fellow doctors, including eventually Li Wenliang, whose death from the virus would later trigger a flood of grief and anger.
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@WSJ @JNBPage @xinwenfan @natashakhanhk @wangfanfan @Lingling_Wei @patrick1barta On Jan. 1, another patient arrived at Dr. Ai’s department: The owner of a private medical clinic near Huanan market who had become seriously ill. Dr. Ai again alerted hospital authorities on Jan. 1, and ordered her own department to put on masks.
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@WSJ @JNBPage @xinwenfan @natashakhanhk @wangfanfan @Lingling_Wei @patrick1barta That night, the hospital’s discipline department summoned her for a chat, where she was criticized for “spreading rumors." She tried to argue that the disease could be contagious. They said her action caused panic and “damaged the stability” of Wuhan.
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@WSJ @JNBPage @xinwenfan @natashakhanhk @wangfanfan @Lingling_Wei @patrick1barta Dr. Ai's hospital’s leadership banned staff from discussing the disease. Eight days later, a nurse in her department started to feel sick—by the coronavirus, she later learned. By early March, three doctors at the hospital had died from the infection.
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@WSJ @JNBPage @xinwenfan @natashakhanhk @wangfanfan @Lingling_Wei @patrick1barta Despite ample evidence to the contrary, the Wuhan branch of China's National Health Commission said Dec. 31 that they had "not found any obvious human-to-human transmission or infection of medical staff…The disease is preventable and controllable.”
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@WSJ @JNBPage @xinwenfan @natashakhanhk @wangfanfan @Lingling_Wei @patrick1barta That same day, Dec. 31, a regular customer of Huanan market who had begun coughing up blood eight days earlier was transferred to Wuhan's Jinyintan Hospital. Another 40 patients checked in that day—all with the same symptoms, and all tied to the market.
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@WSJ @JNBPage @xinwenfan @natashakhanhk @wangfanfan @Lingling_Wei @patrick1barta By Jan. 2 Chinese scientists had identified a new coronavirus and mapped its genetic sequence, but didn't publicly confirm an outbreak of a new coronavirus until Jan. 9, two days after @WSJ reported it. The genome wasn't shared with the world till Jan. 12.
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@WSJ @JNBPage @xinwenfan @natashakhanhk @wangfanfan @Lingling_Wei @patrick1barta Some epidemiologists say the genome data should have been shared at least a week earlier, and that authorities shouldn't have repeatedly denied human-to-human transmission for so long. “We knew then that the government was lying,” said one local doctor.
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@WSJ @JNBPage @xinwenfan @natashakhanhk @wangfanfan @Lingling_Wei @patrick1barta Only after a WHO official told a press conference on Jan. 14 that there could be “limited human-to-human transmission, potentially among families” did the Wuhan branch of the National Health Commission adjust its language to echo that position.
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@WSJ @JNBPage @xinwenfan @natashakhanhk @wangfanfan @Lingling_Wei @patrick1barta Even then, Li Qun, the head of the China CDC’s emergency center, played down the threat, telling state television on Jan. 15: “We have reached the latest understanding that the risk of human-to-human transmission is low.”
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@WSJ @JNBPage @xinwenfan @natashakhanhk @wangfanfan @Lingling_Wei @patrick1barta Hubei and Wuhan held annual sessions of their legislative bodies, when local authorities routinely suppress bad news, from Jan. 6 to 17. Between Jan. 5 and 17, no new cases were announced. On Jan. 18, Wuhan went ahead with a massive Lunar New Year banquet.
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@WSJ @JNBPage @xinwenfan @natashakhanhk @wangfanfan @Lingling_Wei @patrick1barta The first public indication of Xi Jinping’s involvement came Jan. 20, when state media said he ordered officials to contain the virus. It now appears that he was in charge since a Jan. 7 senior party meeting—a change of narrative made public in February.
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@WSJ @JNBPage @xinwenfan @natashakhanhk @wangfanfan @Lingling_Wei @patrick1barta Meanwhile, Peking University’s Wang Guangfa was sent to Wuhan and told state media on Jan. 10 the virus had little capacity to cause illness and that the epidemic was under control. Dr. Wang announced later that he had caught the virus.
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@WSJ @JNBPage @xinwenfan @natashakhanhk @wangfanfan @Lingling_Wei @patrick1barta Some experts had access to the first 41 confirmed cases but were reluctant to share data before publication in a prestigious medical journal, according to doctors and scientists. One doctor repeatedly asked for more clinical details and was brushed off.
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@WSJ @JNBPage @xinwenfan @natashakhanhk @wangfanfan @Lingling_Wei @patrick1barta On Jan. 18, the day of Wuhan's big New Year banquet, a team of doctors was sent to Wuhan, including Dr. Zhong Nanshan, one of China's best known epidemiologists and the leader of the task force, who had become a national hero for his role in fighting SARS.
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@WSJ @JNBPage @xinwenfan @natashakhanhk @wangfanfan @Lingling_Wei @patrick1barta Local doctors told Dr. Zhong of one patient who had infected 14 medical workers at one hospital. Still, when Xi spoke Jan. 20, he made no mention of human-to-human transmission. Hours later, Dr. Zhong told state TV the virus was spreading between people.
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@WSJ @JNBPage @xinwenfan @natashakhanhk @wangfanfan @Lingling_Wei @patrick1barta Dr. Zhong privately informed the Chinese leadership the situation was more dire than they realized, and presented a series of recommendations, including locking down Wuhan—as a Plan B. To their surprise, Xi went for Plan B.
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@WSJ @JNBPage @xinwenfan @natashakhanhk @wangfanfan @Lingling_Wei @patrick1barta The extraordinary lockdown of Wuhan and much of Hubei province, with a population of nearly 60 million, shut down much of the country's economy. But by late February, new cases were slowing in China—though rising sharply in other countries.
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@WSJ @JNBPage @xinwenfan @natashakhanhk @wangfanfan @Lingling_Wei @patrick1barta Dr. Zhong said if action had been taken sooner, in early January or before, “the number of sick would have been greatly reduced." Huanan vendor Wei Guixian agrees. Had officials acted sooner, she said in an interview, “a lot fewer people would have died."
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