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Leaked files reveal China's chaotic initial response to covid-19

2020-12-02T18:06:22.375Z


China reported fewer cases, took weeks to diagnose new COVID-19 infections, and did not reveal a surge in flu cases in December in Hubei province, according to numerous documents obtained by CNN.


(CNN) ––

A group of front-line medical workers, probably exhausted, appear huddled together in a video conference as the most powerful man in China raises his hand in greeting.

It is February 10 in Beijing and President Xi Jinping, who for weeks has been absent from public view, speaks to hospital staff in the city of Wuhan as they fight to contain the spread of a new coronavirus as yet unnamed. official.

From a safe room about 1,200 kilometers from the epicenter, Xi expressed his condolences to those who died in the outbreak.

He called for more public communication, as worries around the world about the potential threat posed by the new disease were mounting.

That same day, Chinese authorities reported 2,478 new confirmed cases, bringing the global total number to more than 40,000, and fewer than 400 cases were outside of mainland China.

However, CNN can now reveal how official documents that circulated internally show that this was only part of the picture.

In a report marked 'internal document, keep confidential', local health authorities in Hubei province, where the virus was first detected, list a total of 5,918 new cases detected on February 10, more than double the number. the official public number of confirmed cases, breaking down the total into a variety of subcategories.

This higher figure was never fully disclosed at the time, as China's counting system seemed, in the tumult of the first weeks of the pandemic, to downplay the severity of the outbreak.

The previously undisclosed figure is found in a series of disclosures contained in 117 pages of leaked documents from the Hubei Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, shared and verified by CNN.

Together, the documents constitute the most significant leak from inside China since the beginning of the pandemic, providing the first clear window into what local authorities knew internally and when they learned it.

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The Chinese government has roundly rejected accusations made by the United States and other Western governments that it deliberately withheld information related to the virus, maintaining that it has been outspoken since the outbreak began.

However, while the documents do not provide evidence of a deliberate attempt to cloud the findings, they reveal numerous inconsistencies between what authorities believed was happening and what was revealed to the public.

Hubei Province: Undisclosed December Flu


Internal documents obtained by CNN revealed a previously undisclosed large flu outbreak in early December in Hubei Province.

The outbreak was felt most severely in Yichang and Xianning.

Wuhan - the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak - was the third worst hit.

The documents, which cover an incomplete period between October 2019 and April this year, reveal what appears to be an inflexible healthcare system, constrained by a top-down bureaucracy and rigid procedures poorly designed to deal with the emerging crisis.

At several critical moments in the initial phase of the pandemic, the documents show evidence of clear missteps and point to a pattern of institutional failures.

One of the most striking points refers to the slowness with which local patients were diagnosed with covid-19.

Even when the Hubei authorities presented their handling of the initial outbreak as efficient and transparent to the public, documents show that local health officials relied on flawed reporting and testing mechanisms.

A report contained in the documents from early March says that the average time between the onset of symptoms and the confirmed diagnosis was 23.3 days, something experts have told CNN would have significantly hampered measures to monitor and combat. the illness.

China has strongly defended its handling of the outbreak.

At a press conference on June 7, the State Council of China published a so-called White Paper in which it said that the Chinese government had always published information related to the epidemic in a "timely, open and transparent manner."

“In making a total effort to contain the virus, China has also acted with a keen sense of responsibility towards humanity, its people, posterity and the international community.

You have provided information on covid-19 in a completely professional and efficient manner.

It has published reliable and detailed information as soon as possible and on a regular basis, thus effectively responding to public concern and building public consensus, ”says the White Paper.

CNN has reached out to the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Health Commission, as well as the Hubei Health Commission, which oversees the provincial Center for Disease Control, for comment on the findings disclosed in the documents. but received no reply.

Health experts said the documents revealed why what China knew in the first few months mattered.

Medical personnel work in the intensive care unit of a Wuhan hospital on February 24.

"It was clear that they made mistakes, and not just mistakes that happen when it comes to a new virus, but politically motivated and bureaucratic mistakes in the way they handled it," said Yanzhong Huang, senior global health researcher at the Council on Relations. Foreign Ministry, who has written extensively on public health in China.

These (mistakes) had global consequences.

100% transparency can never be guaranteed.

This is not just an intentional cover-up.

There are also limitations from technology and other problems with a new virus.

But even if they had been 100% transparent, that would not have prevented the Trump administration from downplaying the seriousness of the situation.

It probably wouldn't have stopped this from turning into a pandemic. '

Tuesday, December 1, marked a year since the first known patient showed symptoms of the disease in the provincial capital of Hubei, Wuhan, according to a key study published in the

Lancet

medical journal

.

At the same time, when the virus is believed to have first appeared, documents show another health crisis was unfolding: Hubei was dealing with a major influenza outbreak.

That sent cases up 20 times the level recorded the previous year, documents show, putting enormous levels of additional stress on an already strained healthcare system.

The influenza "epidemic", as officials noted in the document, was not only present in Wuhan in December, but was greatest in the neighboring cities of Yichang and Xianning.

It is not clear what impact or connection the increase in influenza had on the covid-19 outbreak.

And while there is no suggestion in the documents that the two parallel crises were linked, information on the magnitude of the Hubei flu surge has yet to be made public.

The leaked revelations come as pressure mounts from the United States and the European Union on China to fully cooperate with a World Health Organization investigation into the origins of the virus, which has since spread to every corner. of the world, infecting more than 60 million people and killing 1.46 million.

But, until now, international experts' access to hospital medical records and raw data in Hubei has been limited, and the WHO said last week that they had "assurances from our colleagues in the Chinese government that they would be granted." a trip to the place 'as part of his research.

The files were submitted to CNN by a whistleblower who requested anonymity.

He said he worked in the Chinese healthcare system and was a motivated patriot to expose a truth that had been censored and honor colleagues who had spoken out as well.

It is not clear how the documents were obtained or why specific articles were selected.

The documents have been verified by six independent experts who examined the veracity of their content on behalf of CNN.

An expert with close ties to China reported seeing some of the reports during a confidential investigation earlier this year.

A European security official with knowledge of Chinese internal documents and procedures also confirmed to CNN that the files were genuine.

The metadata for the files viewed by CNN contains the names of provincial officials on duty as modifiers and authors.

The metadata creation dates are aligned with the content of the documents.

A digital forensic analysis was also conducted to test its computer code against its alleged origins.

Sarah Morris of the Digital Forensic Analysis Unit at Cranfield University in Britain said there was no evidence that the data had been tampered with or was misleading.

He added that the oldest files appeared to have been used repeatedly over a long period.

"It's almost like a mini-filesystem," he said.

«So, it has a lot of space for discarded things, for old things.

That's a very good sign [of authenticity].

The world obtained more optimistic data than reality

The documents show a wide range of data on two specific days, February 10 and March 7, which often contradicts what officials said publicly at the time.

This discrepancy was likely due to a combination of a highly dysfunctional reporting system and a recurring instinct to suppress bad news, analysts said.

The documents show the full scope of what officials knew, but chose not to explain it to the public.

On February 10, when China reported 2,478 new confirmed cases across the country, documents show that Hubei actually distributed a different total of 5,918 new reported cases.

The internal number is divided into subcategories, providing an idea of ​​the full scope of Hubei's diagnostic methodology at the time.

There are 2,345 "confirmed cases", 1,772 "clinically diagnosed cases" and 1,796 "suspected cases."

The strict and limiting criteria ultimately led to misleading figures, analysts said.

"Many of the suspected cases should have been listed as confirmed cases," said Huang of the Council on Foreign Relations, who reviewed the documents and found that they were authentic.

"The figures they were giving were conservative and this reflects how confusing, complex and chaotic the situation was," he added.

That month, Hubei officials submitted a daily number of "confirmed cases" and then included "suspected cases" in their statements, without specifying the number of seriously ill patients who had been diagnosed by doctors as "clinically diagnosed."

Often in national counts, officials gave the daily new "confirmed" cases and provided a running count of the entire pandemic of "suspected cases," to which the "clinically diagnosed" ones also appear to have been added.

This use of a broad count of "suspected cases" effectively minimized the severity of patients that doctors had seen and determined to be infected, according to strict criteria, experts said.

William Schaffner, a professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University, said the Chinese approach was conservative and that the data "would have been presented in a different way if American epidemiologists had been there to help."

He added that Chinese officials "seemed to actually minimize the impact of the epidemic at any given moment.

Including patients who were suspected of having the infection would obviously have enlarged the size of the outbreak and would have given, I think, a more realistic appreciation of the nature of the infection and its size. '

The protocols for the diagnosis of coronavirus, published by the National Health Commission of China in late January, instructed doctors to label a case as "suspicious" if a patient had a history of contact with known cases, fever and symptoms of pneumonia. , and to elevate the case to "clinically diagnosed" if these symptoms were confirmed by an X-ray or a CT scan.

A case would only be 'confirmed' if the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) or genetic sequencing tests were positive.

Andrew Mertha, director of the China Studies Program at Johns Hopkins University, said officials may have been motivated to "minimize" numbers to disguise problems of preparedness and underfunding in local health care agencies such as centers for the control of provincial diseases.

According to Mertha, the documents - which he reviewed and found authentic - appeared to be organized in a way that allowed senior officials to paint any picture they wanted.

Medical workers in full protective clothing in Wuhan on January 25.

"It offers them all the options without putting anyone in an explicitly embarrassing position, giving them both the anvil and the life raft to choose from."

Chinese officials soon improved the reporting system, placing "clinically diagnosed" cases in the "confirmed" category in mid-February.

Senior Hubei provincial and health officials were also removed from their posts at the time.

They would have been ultimately responsible for the information.

In addition, the broader and improved evidence meant that "suspicious" cases could be clarified faster and appear less in reports.

On the other hand, China's diagnostic criteria have been criticized by health experts for its continued public decision not to count asymptomatic cases.

Xi Jinping verifies the treatment of hospitalized patients through a video link at Beijing Ditan Hospital on February 10.

The death figures in the documents reveal the starkest discrepancies.

As of March 7, the total death toll in Hubei since the start of the outbreak was 2,986, but the internal report shows 3,456, including 2,675 confirmed deaths, 647 "clinically diagnosed" deaths and 126 "suspicious" deaths.

Dali Yang, who has studied the origins of the outbreak extensively, said that in February the numbers "still mattered because of global perceptions."

"They were still hoping that it would be like 2003, and that like Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) it would eventually be contained, and everything could go back to normal," added Yang, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago.

He pointed to the February 7 call between Presidents Trump and Xi.

"I think that's also the (illusory) impression that Trump had: that this was going to go away."

The documents, however, are by no means clear.

On two occasions, the public death figures were narrowly exceeded, and internal figures indicate single-digit discrepancies of five and one, respectively.

At other times, the data provides glimpses of new information but without vital context.

Although China has never disclosed the total number of COVID-19 cases in 2019, there is a graph in a document that appears to suggest the detection of a much higher number.

In the lower left column of the graph marked 2019, the number of “confirmed cases” and “clinically diagnosed” cases appears to reach around 200 in total.

The documents do not give more details.

To date, the clearest indication of how many cases were detected in 2019 is the 44 "cases of pneumonia of unknown etiology (unknown cause)" reported to WHO by the Chinese authorities for the period of the pandemic to 3 April. January 2020.

A long wait for tests

Testing was incorrect from the start, according to the documents, and led to a reporting system with delays of weeks in diagnosing new cases.

Experts said that meant that most of the daily figures reporting the government's response ran the risk of being inaccurate or out of date.

On January 10, one of the documents reveals how during an audit of test sites, several officials reported that the SARS test kits used to diagnose the new virus were ineffective, regularly returning false negatives.

He also indicated that poor levels of personal protective equipment meant that virus samples had to be rendered inactive prior to testing.

The document, whose metadata says it was last updated on February 19, states:

Retrospective testing of the first samples ... found that those that tested negative using SARS test kits are mostly positive for the new coronavirus. "

(Private companies contracted by the Center for Disease Control used extraction reagents and sample fluids that) "inhibit each other and

results are false negatives."

Source: Hubei Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention

The high rate of false negatives exposed a series of problems that China would take weeks to rectify.

According to Chinese state media reports in early February, some Hubei health experts had expressed frustration with the accuracy of the nucleic acid tests.

Those tests work by detecting the genetic code of the virus, and were believed to be most effective at detecting infection, particularly in the early stages.

However, tests carried out at the time yielded a positivity rate of only 30% to 50% among already confirmed cases, according to officials quoted in state media.

To avoid "false negatives", health officials began to retest suspected cases.

By early February, the Hubei labs had the capacity to test more than 10,000 people a day, according to state media reports.

To cope with the high volume, officials decided to start incorporating other clinical diagnostic methods, such as CT scans.

This led to the creation of a category known internally as "clinically diagnosed cases."

It wasn't until mid-February that clinically diagnosed cases were added to the number of confirmed cases.

Health experts raised other, even more serious issues that are noted in the documents.

In the first months of the outbreak, the average time required to process a case, from when the patient experienced symptoms (onset) until the diagnosis was confirmed, was 23.3 days.

The persistent delay would likely have made targeting public health interventions much more difficult, said Dr. Amesh Adalja of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

"You're looking at data from three weeks ago and trying to make a decision today," he said.

The report notes that, by March 7, the system had improved a lot.

By then, more than 80% of new confirmed cases diagnosed on a given day were registered in the system that same day.

Several experts described the temporary delay as extraordinary, even taking into account the initial difficulties that the authorities faced.

"That adds another layer of understanding why some of the numbers that came out of the highest levels of government were probably wrong," said Schaffner of Vanderbilt University.

“In the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany there is always a delay.

It is not known instantly.

But 23 days is a long time.

Early warning systems hampered

Throughout the documents the lack of preparation is reflected.

Some sections are very critical in their internal assessment of the government's support for the operations of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Hubei.

The report characterizes the Hubei Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention as underfunded, lacking adequate testing equipment, and unmotivated staff who often felt ignored in China's vast bureaucracy.

The documents include an internal audit, which according to forensic analysis was written in October 2019, before the pandemic began.

The October audit concludes:

A huge gap in staffing and funding of the Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention

seriously

affected

the normal performance of public health functions

.

(The authors urge the local health department to) “effectively obtain government care and support in disease prevention to ensure the financial stability and well-being of the Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention so that we can operate with normal".

Source: Hubei Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention

More than a month before the date the first cases are believed to have emerged, the review continued to urge health authorities to "rigorously find the weak link in disease control efforts, actively analyze and address gaps."

The internal report of the Hubei Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention complains about the lack of operational funding from the Hubei provincial government and notes that the staff budget is 29% below its annual target.

Take as an example the year 2019, staff funding of the provincial Hubei Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention needs 99.11 million yuan (US $ 13.9 million);

the provincial government allocated 70.12 million yuan;

operating financing needs 34.56 million yuan, the provincial finance department allocated zero yuan.

The funding gap for staff

and operating expenses is 63 million yuan

. '

Source: Hubei Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention

After the outbreak, Chinese officials acted quickly to assess the problems.

Yet more than four months after the virus was first identified, major problems continued to hamper disease control efforts in key areas, documents show.

The rapid identification and detection of unexplained pathogens is obviously insufficient (...) the information infrastructure is poor, the data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and medical institutions are not yet open to each other, the surveillance of

infectious diseases and the early warning capacity is not sensitive and accurate ”.

Source: Hubei Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention

The report also highlights the peripheral role of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in investigating the initial outbreak, noting that staff were constrained by official processes and their expertise was not fully utilized.

Rather than taking the initiative, the report suggests that staff at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention resigned themselves to "passively" completing the task assigned by superiors.

In the initial stages of the epidemic,

the Center for Disease Control and Prevention did not play a major role in alerting, beginning epidemiological investigation, monitoring and evaluating health,

in formulating prevention and control measures and making recommendations for policies.

Instead, during the outbreak prevention and control process, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention only passively completed the task assigned by superiors and did not use their professional expertise.

The provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention only has technical guidance responsibilities for lower-level institutions, and has no legal or administrative responsibilities.

As the main public health unit, the status of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention is not high, and it does not have a strong voice.

Source: Hubei Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention

Officials also faced a heavy and unresponsive information technology network, known as China's Infectious Disease Direct Notification System, according to state media, installed at a cost of US $ 167 million after the SARS outbreak. 2003.

The construction of a public health information system is seriously delayed

”, he concluded.

“First, the construction of the working information system of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention is seriously delayed, when the outbreak of the novel coronavirus occurred, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention lacked the information system and the tools for public health emergency response ”.

Source: Hubei Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention

In theory, the system was supposed to allow hospitals and regional centers for disease control and prevention to report infectious diseases directly to a centrally managed system.

This would allow data to be instantly shared with the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and relevant health departments across the country.

In reality, logging into the system was slow, an audit said, and many other bureaucratic procedural restrictions hampered registration and rapid data collection.

According to Huang of the Council on Foreign Relations, the report denies China's claim to have invested massively in disease control and prevention after the 2003 SARS outbreak.

"If you look at the local level, the outlook is not as rosy as the government had claimed," he said.

Large influenza outbreak in Hubei

The documents also reveal a 20-fold increase in influenza cases recorded during a week in early December in Hubei province.

This increase had not been disclosed before.

The increase in cases, which occurred during the week that began December 2, was approximately 2,059% compared to the same week last year, according to internal data.

In particular, the outbreak that week was not severe in Wuhan - the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak - but in the nearby cities of Yichang, with 6,135 cases, and Xianning, with 2,148 cases.

Wuhan was the third worst hit with 2,032 new cases that week.

Public data shows an increase in influenza across the country in December.

However, experts point out that the rise in influenza cases, although not unique to Hubei, would have complicated the task of officials in the search for dangerous new viruses.

Although the magnitude of the increase in influenza in Hubei has not been reported before, it is difficult to draw solid conclusions.

Especially, given the possible prevalence of previously undetected covid-19.

The documents show that testing of influenza patients yielded a large number of unknown results.

Still, experts cautioned that this does not necessarily indicate that such unknown results were indeed undetected coronavirus cases.

«They are only testing what they know.

This [coronavirus] is totally unknown, ”said Adalja, the Johns Hopkins University academic.

And he added that this scenario was not unusual in the world.

“We are not that good at diagnosing (new viruses).

We're looking for the usual suspects.

We always look for the obvious, but never the strangest.

Subsequently, the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention conducted a retrospective investigation of influenza cases dating back to October 2019 in two Wuhan hospitals.

This in an attempt to search for traces of the coronavirus.

But, according to a study published in the journal Nature, they were unable to identify samples of the virus that were from before January 2020. Similar studies have yet to be conducted in other cities in Hubei.

For its part, the flu spike may have inadvertently helped accelerate the early spread of the coronavirus, Huang said.

"Those people sought care in hospitals, which increased the chances of COVID-19 infection there," he said.

Influenza data also suggest that the outbreak was worse in Yichang.

While the rise in influenza and the emergence of covid-19 are not linked in the documents or by other evidence, data pointing to a flu-like outbreak in various cities in Hubei will likely be of interest to those investigating the origins of the illness.

The Chinese government previously pointed to the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan as the likely initial epicenter of the outbreak in mid-December.

A place where meat from exotic wild animals was sold.

However, that claim has been challenged, at least partially, by a Lancet study of the first December patients, which found that a third of the 41 infected that month had no direct connection to that market.

Yichang, 320 kilometers west of Wuhan, was hit the hardest by the flu outbreak - almost three times more than Wuhan in the week that began on December 2.

Mertha, the Johns Hopkins University China expert, said the surge at Yichang, while not related to covid-19 in the papers, could open up new theories about where the virus started.

"The order of magnitude of the change means there has to be something," he said.

A developing crisis

China's leaders were the first to face the virus.

In that sense, they implemented a series of draconian restrictions since the end of January with the intention of slowing the spread of the outbreak.

Using sophisticated surveillance tools, government officials imposed strict closures across the country, greatly restricting the mobility of more than 700 million people home, while temporarily closing national borders and conducting widespread contract testing and tracing.

According to a study published in the journal Science in May, the strict measures taken during the first 50 days of the pandemic likely helped break the chain of localized transmission.

Currently, China is close to zero local coronavirus cases and although small-scale outbreaks still occur, the vast majority of the virus is contained.

However, in February the story was different.

As the number of cases increased across the country, government officials faced a potential crisis of legitimacy, as public opinion quickly turned against the ruling Communist Party for what was perceived as mismanagement of the deadly new disease.

Over the past 30 years, according to analysts, many in China have seemed willing to give up their political freedoms in exchange for greater material wealth, social stability and greater opportunities.

The virus fundamentally threatened that social contract, putting hundreds of millions at risk while affecting an economy already weakened by the trade war with the United States.

In late January, Xi, China's most powerful leader in decades, publicly ordered "maximum efforts" to contain the spread of the virus.

At that time, China celebrated the Lunar New Year, its most important annual holiday.

The notion of an impending pandemic struck many as an abstract distraction, as people returned home to spend time with family members.

Xi's very public intervention, which occurred just days after Wuhan was placed in lockdown, carried a clear message: failure is not an option.

Throughout this period, the gap between public statements by Chinese officials and internally distributed data is sometimes direct.

Leaked documents show that the confirmed daily death toll in Hubei rose to 196 on February 17.

On the same day, Hubei publicly reported only 93 deaths from viruses.

Another report also records the death of six health workers from covid-19 before February 10.

His passing was not made public at the time and they were very sensitive, given the volume of sympathy towards the overwhelmed healthcare staff, on the front lines of the pandemic, that was appearing on social media at the time.

As the virus spread, local officials were accused of downplaying the outbreak and the risk it posed to the public.

In late December, a young doctor named Li Wenliang at one of Wuhan's major hospitals was summoned by local authorities, among other medical workers, and later received a formal "reprimand" from the police for attempting to sound the alarm about a possible "SARS-like type" virus.

State media reported on his punishment and warned the public against the rumors.

Li Wenliang

Li, 34, later contracted the disease.

His condition quickly worsened and he died in the early morning of February 7.

His passing sparked virtually unprecedented levels of anger and outrage on mainland China's heavily censored internet.

It is unclear to what extent the central government was aware of the actions in Hubei at the time, or how much information was being shared and with whom.

The documents offer no indication that Beijing was leading the local decision-making process.

However, Mertha, the Johns Hopkins University academic, said the mismatch between the highest internal figures and the lowest public figures against the February death toll "appeared to be a hoax, for unsurprising reasons."

"China had an image to protect in the international community, and lower-ranking officials had a clear incentive to underreport - or show their superiors that they were under-reporting - to outside eyes," he said.

Conversely, however, the leaked documents also provide a sort of defense to China's overall handling of the virus.

Reports show that in the early stages of the pandemic, the country faced the same registration, testing and diagnostic problems that still haunt many western democracies even now.

Problems compounded by the fact that Hubei was facing a completely new virus.

Similarly, officials do not mention the alleged and so-called laboratory leak, or that the virus was man-made, as some critics, including certain senior US officials, have claimed without proof.

There is a mention of poor facilities in a preservation center for bacterial and toxic species, although the point is not detailed nor is its importance clarified.

China and its health workers were under immense stress when the outbreak occurred, said Yang of the Council on Foreign Relations.

They had a massive career in the medical system.

They were overloaded.

There was real desperation among medical professionals at the end of January, because they were extremely overworked and they were also hugely discouraged by the high number of deaths caused by a disease that had not been treated before, "he added.

Hubei, which lags far behind Beijing, Shanghai and other major Chinese administrative divisions in terms of GDP per capita, was the first region to face a virus that would confuse many of the world's most powerful countries.

Schaffner of Vanderbilt University said that many of the comments in the papers could have been made in the United States, “where, for the past 15 to 20 years, especially at the state and local level, public health funding has been seen restricted ».

The documents show that health care officials did not understand the magnitude of the impending disaster.

Nowhere in the files does it indicate that officials believed the virus would become a global pandemic.

This Tuesday marks exactly 12 months since the first patient in Wuhan began to show symptoms, according to the

Lancet

study

.

The death toll and the number of people infected by the virus, now known to the world as covid-19 and which affects the lives of the entire planet, continues to grow day by day.

covid-19 pandemic wuhan

Source: cnnespanol

All news articles on 2020-12-02

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