Wuhan toll was kept low by rigid infection definition, claims doctor

BEIJING: Stringent medical standards had to be met before a patient was classified as a novel coronavirus victim, keeping the infection toll artificially low in the initial days of the outbreak in Wuhan, according to reports in the Chinese media.

Once senior health officials were persuaded to loosen the parameters in the third week of January, the outbreak numbers catapulted in Wuhan, a front line doctor working in the city told Caixin, a Beijing-based multimedia group.

“You had to have exposure to the south China seafood market (where the virus is said to have been transmitted from animals to humans), you needed to have a fever, and test positive for the virus. You had to meet all three criteria in order to be diagnosed (with the infection).

“The third one was especially stringent. In reality, very few people were able to test for a virus,” Peng Zhiyong, a top doctor at the Wuhan University South Central Hospital, told Caixin.

It meant that for a good week in mid-january, Wuhan health authorities reported only 41 cases and one death from the infection.

“On January 18, high-level specialists from the National Health Commission came to Wuhan, to the south Central Hospital, to inspect. I told them again that the criteria were too high. This way it was easy to miss infections. I told them this was infectious: if you made the criteria too high and let patients go, you’re putting society in danger.

“After a second national team of specialists came, the criteria were changed. The number of diagnosed patients rose quickly,” Peng reportedly said.