Here is an update to my earlier article, which asked six questions of the Chinese government: niallferguson.com/blog#.Xp76zROZ… It includes a response to Daniel Bell: danielabell.com/2020/04/21/did… The original article is here: niallferguson.com/journalism/pol…
Update 1: it seems increasingly likely, though not yet certain, that the virus originated at one of the two research institutes in Wuhan where scientists study zoonoses.
Update 2: It is still not clear when exactly the central government knew there was a serious problem in Wuhan.
Update 3: Data from sensors tracking actual flight paths would seem to indicate that no flights left from Wuhan itself to other countries after January 23. However, we now know that by that time thousands of infected citizens had already left Wuhan ...
... so a ban on all flights out of China would have been neede. More importantly, while the government banned group travel and tourism within China on January 24, it continued to allow individual and group travel to all other parts of the world through the Lunar New Year holiday.
Update 4: Lijian Zhao is still in his job as spokesman of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and has not been visibly reprimanded.
Update 5: The South China Morning Post reported on April 7 that Ren Zhiqiang is “being investigated for alleged “serious violations of law and discipline,” according to a statement by the Commission for Discipline Inspection. I have no further news about Ai Fen.
Update 6: As the BBC reported, “The Chinese city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus originated last year, has raised its official Covid-19 death toll by 50%, adding 1,290 fatalities."
Daniel Bell concludes his attack on me with a pious wish for “collaboration between China and the rest of the world.” That would indeed be welcome. ...
... It would have been even more welcome in December and January, when tens of thousands of lives might have been saved if the Chinese authorities had come clean about the novel coronavirus in Wuhan.
