6 months to the day that I wrote our lead @TheLancet editorial on a mysterious new pneumonia-like outbreak drafting it in 3 hours instead of the usual 3 days. Colleagues gave input in 1 h instead of 24 h. 6 months for the world to change forever. #writing thelancet.com/journals/lance…
Writing a leader under those conditions is risky: what was the outbreak & would it spread? Are we making something of nothing? Should we go soft or hard on China’s response & transparency? What about this ‘lockdown’ of Wuhan, an intervention we thought of as draconian (ha ha).
Our EIC edited the leader; we waited overnight for WHO to decide about the PHEIC. New cases from around the world were reported (we couldn't keep up). We had the first 2 research reports from China describing the novel coronavirus.....We were under pressure to go live ASAP.