China’s state secrecy likely allowed faster spread

Government officials apparently didn’t learn lessons from 2002 SARS outbreak that killed 800

Beijing — It was almost the Lunar New Year and Pan Chuntao was feeling festive.

He knew there were reports of a virus in his city, Wuhan. But local officials urged calm. There was no evidence it was transmitted person to person, they said. They had not reported a new case in days.

On Jan. 16, the 76-year-old left his two-bedroom apartment to attend a government-organized fair.

“We told him not to go because we saw some rumors on WeChat of doctors getting infected,” said Pan’s sonin-law, Zhang Siqiang. “But he insisted on going. He said, ‘The government says it’s not a problem, there are no cases anymore.’”

Pan and his daughter may now be among the more than 14,000 people infected with a new strain of coronavirus — an outbreak that has killed at least 304 people in China, spread to more than 20 countries, disrupted the global economy and left 55 million people in China’s Hubei province under an unprecedented lockdown.

Pan was one of millions of Chinese who mingled, traveled and carried on with daily life during the critical period from mid-December to mid-January.

It was a time when Chinese officials were beginning to grasp the threat of a contagious new disease in Wuhan but did little to inform the public — even with the approach of the Lunar New Year holiday that has hundreds of millions of Chinese traveling.

An analysis of those early weeks — from official statements, leaked accounts from Chinese medical professionals, newly released scientific data and interviews with public health officials and infectious disease experts — reveals potential missteps by China’s overburdened public health officials.

It also underscores how a bureaucratic culture that prioritized political stability over all else likely allowed the virus to spread farther and faster.

“It’s clear that a much stronger public health system could save China lives and money,” said Tom Frieden, former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In 2002, China suffered an outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) that was caused by a genetically similar coronavirus, which sickened more than 8,000 people and killed nearly 800 as it spread to more than two dozen countries. China’s government, which was blamed for covering up cases and reacting slowly, vowed to learn from its mistakes and established a surveillance system to quickly react to new pathogens.

Parts of that system — namely Chinese science — held up well in the past two months. But obfuscation from public health officials and other government missteps showed a system that is more rigid and authoritarian than in 2002.

Medical professionals who tried to sound an alarm were seized by police. Key state media omitted mention of the outbreak for weeks. Cadres focused on maintaining stability — and praising party leader Xi Jinping — as the crisis worsened.

“China’s public health system has modernized but China’s political system hasn’t,” said Jude Blanchette, head of China studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “If anything, there’s been a regression.”

In mid-December, patients in Wuhan presented with what seemed like a mix of wintry symptoms: fever, trouble breathing, coughs.

It looked like viral pneumonia. But doctors in Wuhan, a city of 11 million in central China, could not pinpoint the cause. Rumors of a mysterious virus started to swirl on Chinese social media, particularly among medical professionals.

It is clear, now, that Chinese officials soon knew something was amiss.

An account published Thursday in Chinese news sites by an anonymous technician who claimed to work at a lab contracted by hospitals said his company had received samples from Wuhan and reached a stunning conclusion as early as the morning of Dec. 26. The samples contained a new coronavirus with an 87% similarity to bat SARS.

A day later, lab executives held urgent meetings to brief Wuhan health officials and hospital management, the technician wrote.

A bureaucratic culture that prioritized political stability over all else likely allowed the virus to spread farther and faster.