They spent , at least, 2 months denying it and putting doctors that spoke about it in prison. Then after publicly acknowledging it in January they still allowed people to travel abroad. Think think think
None of that is true.
Let me explain you how things work in Medicine.
- Doctors treat patients, even when they don't know what they have. One of these conditions would be called "pneumonia of unknown etiology" or something to that effect. It happens pretty often, here and there.
- By mid-December doctors in Wuhan got concerned about a cluster of patients with this sort of pneumonia; on the 18th there were 8 patients identified. One patient isn't enough, neither are two... You, as a frontline doctor, need a reasonable amount of "strange" clinical cases to even realize something is wrong, so that the specialists who study this kind of outbreak can be called upon to act.
- Genetics, mode of transmission, epidemiology, take some time to study. There may have been many occasions where perhaps wrong decisions were made and time was lost but this is not only expected, it's unavoidable. It takes time to be sure what you're dealing with.
- China started imposing measures in Wuhan very fast, and by 23rd January the city was in full lockdown. This was insanely swift, given that the knowledge of the disease was still being compiled. The results are there for everyone to see. They contained it, after extending measures to other cities. They took maybe two weeks to decide this. When you compare the magnitude of the decision (Economics), and how long western countries are taking to make the same decisions, there is no way it's hypocritical to criticize western leaders. They were far slower, with plenty more information. Do you really think if the outbreak had been in one of these countries it would have been better contained than China? No way.
- After all this is done, "backtracing" allowed them to conclude that the first confirmed patient was in the 1st of December. This is hindsight. Not knowledge at the time. We may even conclude in the future that first patients were in October in some random village in the mountains. Without large clusters it would be natural they would have gone undetected on a national scale, let alone studied. This is why you "heard" of a virus in November. You heard it now, not then.
- No doctors were arrested, or at least there is no reasonable evidence pointing towards this. What we do know is that a doctor, named Li Wenliang, was among the first persons to understand the world-changing nature of the outbreak being studied and try to speak publicly about it. I don't even know if he realized this because he had access to higher-level preliminary information or just out of his own reasoning (just like many "early warner" doctors did a bit everywhere - including, modesty aside, me in my own country, at a much lower and quieter level).
- Li Wenliang wasn't arrested. He was called by local government officials and told to shut up. Then he returned to his normal life and work, util he got ill and died - in absolute freedom (well, as absolute as freedom can be in a country like China)
- Silencing someone may look more daunting because it came from an autocratic country, but from a Public Health perspective it may very well be reasonable. I wish my government did the same around here with all the naysayers that have been causing damage. In hindsight, in China they were wrong, but the principle is the same.
- There will be a gazillion of unexplained small things in here, after all it's China, we are very distant from them, even at a cultural and communication level. It's stupid to conclude from these failures that they could have contained this. It's expecting more from them than you expect from your own leaders. All that matters from politics here is how they relate to Public Health, and on this, the Central Chinese Government has been spot on (so far) and fast. Mostof those "silencing" issues came from local government, run-of-the-mill local crap leaders, which exist everywhere
- Lots more to be said, but it's tiring. I've been thinking of writing a well thought and referenced artocle about this, but have had trouble focusing.
[Opinion, not facts]
- Don't fall for Propaganda. Fake news of "8 arrested doctors" and country-wide cover-up have been popping everywhere for weeks, bit increasing severely now. For anyone who has been studying this for weeks it's pretty obvious what the goal is - deflect blame from western leaders, who were, with no exceptions, far more inept than the Chinese at protecting their people.
