BEIJING: Even after six days of knowing that the country was facing a novel coronavirus pandemic, top Chinese officials did not disclose the fact to the public.
Instead, Wuhan — the epicenter of the disease – organized a mass banquet for tens of thousands of people in which millions traveled through for Lunar New Year celebrations.
Chinese President Xi Jinping warned people only on the seventh day, i.e. on January 20.
However, by this time, over 3,000 people had already been infected, according to internal documents.
The authorities made a mistake at all levels in confronting the outbreak. China’s effort to alert the people and avoiding panic was too late, reports have said because of which more than 126,000 people lost their life so far.
Zuo-Feng Zhang, an epidemiologist at the University of California, Los Angeles said that had China taken action six days earlier, the deaths would have been much lesser, there would have been fewer patients.
According to him, medical facilities would have been sufficient to treat the patients and the world would have avoided the collapse of Wuhan’s medical system.
Chinese government, experts have to say, must have waited on cautioning the public to stave off hysteria.
However, the delay by Chinese authorities came on top of some two weeks during which the Center for Disease Control denied to register any cases from local officials.
During that time, scores of patients appeared in hospitals, besides Wuhan, but across China.
China’s bureaucratic hurdles, rigid controls on information, and the reluctance to send bad news were some of the drawbacks.
Likewise, the punishment of eight doctors for ‘rumor-mongering’, broadcast on national television also sent a bad message through the city’s hospitals. (With inputs from Agencies)
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