On June 7th The State Council Information Office of the People’s Republic of China published Fighting Covid-19 China in Action (click the link to get to the full text).
A 66-page ‘White Paper’ it aims to: a) set the record straight on how China initially communicated it’s COVID-19 problems to the world and, b) provide a blueprint for others if they wish to replicate China’s success in taming another epidemic. Panda-Haters will dismiss it as propaganda and even Huggers will find it a bit of a slog.
Fear not; I slogged away for you and to save time for the merely curios I’ve filleted what I think is the most important part i.e. the indisputable timeline of how and when China communicated its problems to the world as the spread of the virus began to gain momentum.
In the summary below I’m leaving out a lot and confining myself only to the verifiable and incontestable. This should highlight some of the dis-information being peddled by governments whose response to the pandemic has been, by comparison to China’s, incontestably dire.
January 3rd: With only 44-confirmed cases the Wuhan City Health Commission (WCHC) issued an Information Circular on Viral Pneumonia of Unknown Cause. From that day China began updating the WHO, as well as Hong Kong, Macao and (interestingly enough) Taiwan.
January 4th: The head of China’s CDC held a telephone conversation with the director of the US CDC briefing him about a ‘new pneumonia’.
January 5th: The WCHC updated case numbers to 59 and reported this on their website. China sent an update to the WHO who in turn released their first ‘briefing on cases of pneumonia of unknown causes in Wuhan.’
January 8th: China’s National Health Commission (NHC) identified a new coronavirus as the cause of the disease. The heads of the China and US CDCs held a telephone conversation on this day on ‘technical exchanges and cooperation.’
January 9th: China briefed the WHO who released a statement on their website about a cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan.
January 11th: China began daily updates to the WHO and other parties.
January 12th: China submitted to the WHO the (partial, because that’s all they had then) genome sequence of the novel coronavirus (then, 2019-nCoV).
January 30th: The head of the NHC notified the US CDC that American experts were welcome to join the WHO-China Joint Mission on Coronavirus Disease.
February 2nd: The head of the NHC sent a letter to the head of the US HHS (Health and Human Services or just the Health Department) to further exchange views on cooperation on public health and epidemic prevention and control.
February 4th: The head of China CDC took a call from the head of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases on which views were exchanged.
February 11th: At the request of flu experts from the US CDC China’s CDC experts had a teleconference with them where information on prevention and control was exchanged.
February 13th: The head of the NHC received a letter from the head of the US HHS on arrangements concerning bilateral cooperation on public health and novel coronavirus prevention and control.
February 16th: The WHO-China Joint Mission on Covid-19 consisting of 25 experts from China, Germany, Japan, ROK, Nigeria, Russia, Singapore, [And] the US and the WHO started a nine-day field trip to Beijing, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Wuhan.
So that all happened, facts in plain sight.
The ‘aaah-but’ Hater-friends will push back with here is some version of ‘yes, but, China didn’t/hasn’t given up all the information that’s been requested’; and that’s a clever criticism because it’s probably true. Why would they and/or how can they? There will never be complete information, even for the scientists in China who need it most; such is the nature of massive calamity.
This criticism however is not only facile, it’s a wicked misdirection*.
Consider: if a truck is about to hit you how much information, other than just that, do you need to know what to do next? To defend inaction based on a desire to obtain the model number, driver’s name and engine displacement of the truck isn’t one that’s going to get a lot of sympathy; but a version of just this argument is what shabby governments the world over have been using to defend their tardy responses.
I’ll leave it here with a favorite quote of mine from the second President of the United States Mr. John Adams “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence..”
History will be kind to China with regards to their handling of COVID-19, because the facts will compel such an assessment. History will be less kind to others where facts are already shining a harsh light on a pattern of mostly-avoidable incompetence.
Happy Sunday.
[*There’s another criticism that parts of the local Wuhan administration knew before January there was a problem and tried to hush it up. That’s a plausible theory but in the context of the above is just more misdirection from the main point which is how much notice China gave to the rest of the world to prepare.]