1/ NEW: During 12 fateful days in January, Chinese authorities failed to report any new coronavirus cases, lulling Wuhan residents into complacency.

Why? In part, because of cronyism and secret deals between the China CDC and three Shanghai companieshttps://t.co/gs7f0ZBr6a

— Dake Kang (@dakekang) December 3, 2020

3/Instead, the China CDC instituted a top-down, rigid disease detection system. They took charge and shoved competing agencies out of the way, demanding all patient samples be routed through Beijing.

One CDC technician told me they made confirming cases “mission impossible”.

— Dake Kang (@dakekang) December 3, 2020

5/Those three companies were not the best or the biggest. Instead, they were run by people who had ties to Tan Wenjie, a CDC official in charge of testing kits at the beginning of the outbreak. pic.twitter.com/mt1tSu74NR

— Dake Kang (@dakekang) December 3, 2020

7/Instead of publishing information about the virus ASAP, officials at the China CDC sat on it for over a week – even as they sold test kit designs and supplier rights to these three companies.

The price? One million RMB ($137,000), two sources told the AP.

— Dake Kang (@dakekang) December 3, 2020

9/For limited outbreaks, the CDC commissions firms to make small batches of test kits for routine surveillance. It’s a niche market.

Normally, CDC purchases have to be publicly procured. But there’s a possible loophole: China’s procurement law doesn’t apply during disasters. pic.twitter.com/Nhr7caM1Oz

— Dake Kang (@dakekang) December 3, 2020

11/That's what happened in early Jan. CDC officials in charge of testing kits selected the three Shanghai companies and gave them the test kit designs. They validated their kits in secret evaluations at the Hubei CDC on Jan. 10 and 11, even before publishing the virus sequences. pic.twitter.com/gn9C2OaJp1

— Dake Kang (@dakekang) December 3, 2020

13/Well, SARS-CoV-2 turned out to be very different from MERS. It was far more infectious. That assumption that things were business as usual, that this pathogen wouldn’t spread too quickly – that proved to be a fateful mistake.

— Dake Kang (@dakekang) December 3, 2020

15/Secondly, there were so few companies making test kits that when the outbreak erupted into a pandemic, there were massive test kit shortages and huge lines at Wuhan's hospitals. The few kits available were often faulty, as some of the companies making them lacked expertise. pic.twitter.com/ik6PnBlan8

— Dake Kang (@dakekang) December 3, 2020

17/Peng finally tested positive on Feb. 8. By then he was already in critical condition. He passed away on Feb. 19, devastating his mother.

Here's his mother at his grave on Aug. 12, on what would have been his 40th birthday. One of the saddest videos I've ever seen. pic.twitter.com/fbeW8xz4O0

— Dake Kang (@dakekang) December 3, 2020

18/But for the companies themselves, the pandemic turned out to be a huge boon. As one of their executives put it: “The country and the economy suffered major damage. But for our nucleic acid diagnostics industry, this year has actually been a bonus.” pic.twitter.com/qOvmEgGNLz

— Dake Kang (@dakekang) December 3, 2020

20/Rather, it shows how difficult it is to deal with unpredictable events like the coronavirus in our incredibly complex world. Many mistakes here were remarkably similar to those in the US, particularly how CDCs in both countries centralized testing capability – then bungled it

— Dake Kang (@dakekang) December 3, 2020

22/Anyways, as a journalist, it's not my place to comment on this too much. Best to leave that to the historians and scientists to take what we've found and sort it all out.

— Dake Kang (@dakekang) December 3, 2020

24/CDC staff, public health experts I spoke with said the standards for confirming cases were so abnormal that they were convinced someone was *intentionally* blocking testing and artificially suppressing the case count. But we still don't know who or whyhttps://t.co/56K9gS84Cp

— Dake Kang (@dakekang) December 3, 2020

26/Why weren't CDC officials more alarmed that among the first 41 cases they identified in early January, 1/3 of them weren't linked to the Huanan Seafood Market? Why didn't they take the possibility of human-to-human transmission more seriously and look for it aggressively?

— Dake Kang (@dakekang) December 3, 2020

In January, thousands of Wuhan patients lined up for hours to get coronavirus tests, only to be turned away. The Associated Press has now found that the test kit shortages were caused by secret arrangements between the China CDC and three companies. https://t.co/qn3HPAaHl5

— The Associated Press (@AP) December 3, 2020

China's COVID-19 testing blunders stemmed from secret deals with firms https://t.co/71OcEhlor2 pic.twitter.com/7nV2uT0tjj

— New York Post (@nypost) December 3, 2020

Wuhan.https://t.co/ANn5pyPyC8

— simonthong aka kitty poo (@KittyPo80176717) December 3, 2020