China's Lack of Transparency: COVID-19

a. Potential Outbreak Warning

Researchers at The Hong Kong University published a study in October 2007 titled; “Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus as an Agent of Emerging and Re-emerging Infection”. In this study, researchers predicted a SARS-CoV-like virus to re-emerge if wet markets in China remained open. They stated; “The presence of a large reservoir of SARS-CoV-like viruses in horseshoe bats, together with the culture of eating exotic mammals in southern China, is a time bomb.” The study explains that SARS-CoV was the first major pandemic of the new millennium. “The rapid economic growth in southern China has led to an increasing demand for animal proteins including those from exotic game food animals such as civets.” The lack of biosecurity measures among other things, in wet markets “allowed the jumping of this novel virus from animals to human.”[1]

b. COVID-19 Outbreak

According to Chinese government data seen by the South China Morning Post the earliest case of COVID-19 was detected on November 17, 2019. The data indicates that there were nine cases reported in November, four men and five women, and none of them were confirmed as “patient zero.” The government data was not released to the public. For approximately one month after this date, one to five new cases were reported each day, by December 20, 2019, there were 60 confirmed cases.[2] The first confirmed case was previously thought to be in December, according to the World Health Organization’s website.

The World Health Organization was informed of a “pneumonia of unknown cause, detected in the city of Wuhan in Hubei province, China” on December 31, 2019.

According to Chinese business news site, Caixin Global, several genomics companies tested samples from sick patients in late December and found similarities to the 2002 SARS virus. They alerted the authorities and received a gag order from China’s National Health Commission on January 3, 2020, with instructions to destroy the samples.[3]

A CDC Health Advisory memorandum dated January 8, 2020 stated; “The Wuhan Municipal Health Commission has not reported human-to-human transmission.”[4] The CDC distributed a memorandum dated January 17, 2020 stating that the Chinese authorities have been monitoring “several hundred healthcare workers who are caring for outbreak patients; no spread of this virus from patients to healthcare personnel has been reported to date” and the Chinese authorities did not report any “spread of this virus in the community, but they cannot rule out that some limited person-to-person spread may be occurring.”

The World Health Organization tweeted on January 14, 2020 that Chinese authorities found “no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission” of COVID-19.

The Chinese authorities reported that most patients in the Wuhan City outbreak were “epidemiologically linked to a large seafood and animal market, suggesting a possible zoonotic origin to the outbreak.”

Details regarding the level of contagion went public on January 20 and Wuhan was under mass quarantine several days later.[5]

Chinese authorities publicly divulged there was human to human transmission on January 21, 2020. Jonathan Mayer, professor emeritus at the University of Washington’s department of epidemiology stated there were three possibilities: “that cases weren’t detected at the time, that they were detected but not recognized as a new disease, or they were detected and recognized but reporting was suppressed. I have no way of knowing which of these possibilities in fact happened.”[6]

On January 31, the U.S. restricted entry to all foreign visitors who had recently been to China to “protect the American people from exposure to the coronavirus.”

c. Whistleblowers Silenced

On December 30, 2019, Ophthalmologist, Li Wenliang sent a message using WeChat to his alumni group “warning that the ophthalmology department in his hospital had put seven patients from a local seafood market who were diagnosed with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) into isolation wards.” Li was summoned by the hospital’s inspection unit and on January 3, 2020, he was “called in and reprimanded by local police for spreading rumors online and disrupting social order.” He was one of eight unnamed individuals who was accused or punished. Li was punished by the local police and later vindicated by China’s top court. Caixin Global reported that Li felt unwell on January 12, 2020 and suspected he contracted the virus after treating patients. He wrote on his Weibo account: “I was wondering why [the government's] official notices were still saying there was no human-to-human transmission, and there were no healthcare workers infected.” He passed away from COVID-19 on February 7, 2020.[7]

Several other whistleblowers have reportedly disappeared or been silenced. According an article published on February 4, 2020, Chinese law professor, Xu Zhangrun wrote a review of president Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party handling the coronavirus outbreak. Geremie R. Barmé translated the piece which was published on February 10, 2020. The translated title “When Fury Overcomes Fear” read in part: “The cause of all of this lies, ultimately, with The Axle [that is, Xi Jinping] and the cabal that surrounds him. It began with the imposition of stern bans on the reporting of accurate information about the virus, which served to embolden deception at every level of government, although it only struck its true stride when bureaucrats throughout the system consciously shrugged off responsibility for the unfolding crisis while continuing to seek the approbation of their superiors. They stood by blithely as the crucial window of opportunity that was available to deal with the outbreak snapped shut in their faces.”[8] Xu Zhangrun’s piece outlined nine points reflecting his thoughts on China’s circumstances. He concluded; “Writing as I do herein, I can all too easily predict that I will be subjected to new punishments; indeed, this may well even be the last thing I write. But that is not up to me.” Shortly after this was published it was taken down and Xu was placed under house arrest. The publication The Guardian reported guards patrolling outside of his home for a period of time. Although they are currently no longer reported to be guarding his home, Xu’s social media access has been cut off and accounts appear to have been deleted.

Chinese lawyer and citizen journalist, Chen Qiushi disappeared after traveling to Wuhan in late January and uploading more than 100 posts from his trip to his Youtube and Twitter accounts. According to Business Insider these posts “showed overwhelmed hospitals and medical wards.” Friends and family have not been able to reach him since February 6 and his Weibo account, with over 740,000 followers, was removed on the same day.[9]

d. Covering Up Numbers

On January 24, 2020, The Wall Street Journal published an article titled “Relatives Wonder Why Pneumonia Deaths Not in Coronavirus Tally” which reported China’s lack of candor from the beginning regarding COVID-19 related deaths. The article stated; “Some Chinese media with reporters on the ground in Wuhan have said they have found cases that weren’t included in the official reporting.” Causes of death are noted as “pneumonia obtained from the community,” “viral pneumonia,” or “severe pneumonia.”[10]

More recently, The Washington Post reported on March 25, 2020, Wuhan’s near-zero count being “called into question by independent reporting and received with suspicion from experts.” According to the article, media reports in China, Japan, and Hong Kong state that this near-zero count merely reflects a decrease in testing and excluding confirmed asymptomatic cases. This will likely be tested and revealed once residents of the Hubei province will be allowed to move freely after several months in lockdown. An unidentified official at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention was quoted by Caixin Global as saying; “It can’t be determined whether transmission has been completely cut off.” RTHK, a Hong Kong news outlet reported that people in Wuhan were being denied tests to keep the count low. An unnamed Wuhan doctor stated “testing was being suspended in the wake of Xi’s visit to shore up the premise that the battle has been won.”[11]

An article published by Bloomberg.com on March 23, 2020 reported an over 8 million China Mobile customer decline in January and February. China Unicom Hong Kong Ltd. customers reportedly fell by 7.8 million and China Telecom Corp. lost 5.6 million customers over the same period. The drop can certainly be due to deaths from the Coronavirus but the article also quoted Chris Lane, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. explaining that; “Part of the drop could be caused by migrant workers – who often have one subscription for where they work and another for their home region – canceling their work-region account after the virus prevented them from returning to work after the Lunar New Year holidays that began in late January.”[12]

e. Misinformation

China attempted to propagate a conspiracy theory regarding the origin of COVID-19 being spread in the United States and abroad. Zhao Lijian, foreign ministry spokesman, claimed “It might be the US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan.” In fact, Gao Fu, the head of China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention directly contradicted this assessment. Gao stated “we now know the source of the virus is wild animals sold at the seafood market [in Wuhan]” in January.[13]

The World Health Organization stated that “this new virus and disease were unknown before the outbreak began in Wuhan, China, in December 2019.”[14]

Finally, Christl Donnelly, a professor of statistical epidemiology at Imperial College London, explained that genetic analysis indicated a common ancestor in China.[15]

To date, China’s lack of transparency regarding infected individuals can be gleaned from its own people’s reaction to the quarantine being officially lifted. On March 27, 2020, social media and local government sources reported a riot when anyone stuck Hubei, many of which were not locals, attempted to cross county borders to Jiujiang in Jiangxi to return home. The Jiujiang police set up a blockade to stop people from crossing Hubei that resulted in residents damaging and overturning police cars. Video footage of the riots can be seen here.

[1] https://cmr.asm.org/content/cmr/20/4/660.full.pdf

[2] https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3074991/coronavirus-chinas-first-confirmed-covid-19-case-traced-back

[3] https://www.caixinglobal.com/2020-02-29/in-depth-how-early-signs-of-a-sars-like-virus-were-spotted-spread-and-throttled-101521745.html

[4] https://emergency.cdc.gov/han/han00424.asp

[5] https://nypost.com/2020/02/29/china-officials-knew-of-coronavirus-in-december-ordered-cover-up-report-says/

[6] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/13/first-covid-19-case-happened-in-november-china-government-records-show-report

[7] https://www.businessinsider.com/china-coronavirus-whistleblowers-speak-out-vanish-2020-2#this-wasnt-the-first-time-chen-has-been-silenced-by-chinese-officials-11

[8] https://www.chinafile.com/reporting-opinion/viewpoint/viral-alarm-when-fury-overcomes-fear

[9] https://www.businessinsider.com/china-coronavirus-whistleblowers-speak-out-vanish-2020-2#this-wasnt-the-first-time-chen-has-been-silenced-by-chinese-officials-11

[10] https://www.wsj.com/articles/relatives-wonder-whether-pneumonia-deaths-were-tied-to-coronavirus-11579915630

[11] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/china-wuhan-coronavirus-zero-cases/2020/03/25/19bdbbc2-6d15-11ea-a156-0048b62cdb51_story.html

[12] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-23/china-s-mobile-carriers-lose-15-million-users-as-virus-bites?fbclid=IwAR06SxLeE-HbOjuAN1OGAERp13g0dOAWMyvHLAqI-NP3VR72vPk3Mwtbq94