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The first days and weeks of the coronavirus pandemic were crucial. So why did China wait to alert the world? The FT’s investigation, the first of a six-part series, examines what went wrong in Wuhan 👇 https://t.co/ODq0AuG6er
— Financial Times (@FinancialTimes) October 18, 2020
By late December, Geo Fei had read rumours online about the ‘unknown pneumonia’. He confronted officials in his village 120km from Wuhan about why they were ‘totally unprepared’. They were waiting for instructions from higher up. ‘It was shocking’ https://t.co/S4kDhxV7Ww pic.twitter.com/GOJ9Fiqytw
— Financial Times (@FinancialTimes) October 18, 2020
Within days, hospital staff were falling sick, a tell-tale sign of human transmission. The death of one doctor, 33-year-old Li Wenliang, hailed as a whistleblower for alerting his colleagues to the outbreak, provoked a firestorm of public anger https://t.co/S4kDhxV7Ww pic.twitter.com/U4aoHyEOhy
— Financial Times (@FinancialTimes) October 18, 2020
So why didn’t Wuhan-like outbreaks erupt all over China?
— Financial Times (@FinancialTimes) October 18, 2020
The answer: strict lockdowns. With nearly the entire population forced into lockdown in January and February, ‘diagnoses weren’t made . . . the virus just burnt itself out’ https://t.co/S4kDhxV7Ww pic.twitter.com/8SIFIf3uq6
China’s reluctance to leap into action was understandable, said Dale Fisher, an infectious diseases specialist who worked in west African Ebola hotspots. It was a dynamic that would play out across the world over the following months https://t.co/S4kDhycIO4 pic.twitter.com/KjOI8wB8a9
— Financial Times (@FinancialTimes) October 18, 2020