HBO documentary alleges Chinese coronavirus coverup

When evidence began mounting of a deadly new coronavirus in China a year ago, authorities could have reacted with swift warnings about public safety.

They didn’t. Instead, they banned social-media posts about the virus, stopped symptomatic people from entering hospitals, punished doctors who spoke of the risks and unleashed a stream of state-TV propaganda downplaying its severity.

That’s the narrative constructed by “In The Same Breath,” a scathing new documentary by the Oscar-shortlisted filmmaker Nanfu Wang. Wang’s movie, which has been viewed by The Washington Post, argues that the alleged suppression led to an untold number of deaths and the virus spreading rapidly, as unaware people kept taking risks.

In a surprising turn, the movie has been financed and creatively overseen by HBO. It will be aired by the Warner Media subsidiary on an as-yet undetermined date later this year, an uncommon decision by a media conglomerate to take on the government of the world’s largest entertainment market. Experts say the risks to the company, which makes content available on Chinese platforms and distributes some of its biggest blockbusters in the country, could be sizable. “Look at what happened to the NBA when (then-Houston Rockets general manager) Daryl Morey made his comment on Twitter about Hong Kong - games were taken off all platforms and you couldn’t buy Rockets merchandise online anywhere in China,” said Marc Ganis, the founder of the Asia-oriented company Jiaflix and an expert on the entertainment business in China.

The documentary premieres Thursday at the virtual Sundance Film Festival, where it is expected to stir up much attention as a damning indictment of the leadership of Chinese president Xi Jinping in the early days of the pandemic.

“We think of the virus as ‘it was an inevitable disaster and the government responded the best way they could,’” Wang, who was born 200 miles outside Wuhan and currently resides in New York City, said in an interview. “And that’s not the reality. No one can make the calculation of how many lives could have been saved if precautions and warnings were given on time.”

“Breath” seeks to paint a different picture of China’s response from the one circulating in some circles in which China handled the virus well. (Early on, a story in Nature offered “What China’s coronavirus response can teach the rest of the world” and in the fall the executive director for the WHO Health Emergencies Program, Mike Ryan, congratulated “the front-line health workers in China and the population who worked together tirelessly to bring the disease to this very low level.”)

“Breath” argues that Xi’s government was eager to sweep away talk of covid during the critical early period, both with suppression tactics and with propaganda dismissing the dangers. The film highlights many reports, well into January 2020, stating “no clear evidence shows human-to-human transmission” - even as victims are dying in the streets and thousands of people desperately upload their medical information hoping someone will see it and offer them care.

It was only later - after, Wang notes, the Communist Party held its annual Lunar New Year meetings and wrung maximum public-relations benefits from them that the government began publicly acknowledging the risks and imposed the famous Wuhan lockdown.

Ganis noted the NBA is not the only entertainment entity that has suffered retribution in China. “Ask Sony Pictures about what happens if the government disapproves of your movie,” he said, referring to a Chinese outcry in 1997 over the Brad Pitt drama “Seven Years in Tibet.” Beijing saw the film as so hostile to China it stopped all dealings with the studio and imposed a visa ban on Pitt that lasted well over a decade.

The reaction now could depend in part on how vocal HBO went with its support, Ganis said.

“Are they advertising it heavily? Are they pushing it for awards?” he asked. “Or are they just quietly putting it out?”

HBO executives did not comment for this story. Wang said HBO never suggested any changes for business reasons.

Wang’s film builds on the research of many journalists, including those of The Post, that implicates China in not moving quickly enough, offering ground-level visual testimony in a country from which many journalists have been ejected.