New information shows that Chinese officials secretly determined that the new virus spreading across the country was at the pandemic level, they failed to reveal this to the public for six days as millions traveled for Lunar New Year celebrations. On the seventh day, January 20, President Xi Jinping warned the public. However, 3,000 more people had been infected during that week of silence alone, according to internal documents.
The delay from January 14 when officials determined that COVID-19 posed a serious threat and was a pandemic to January 20 was one of many mistakes committed by China at all levels in terms of confronting the outbreak. Experts state that governments around the world have also delayed public announcements of how severe the pandemic has become for weeks and even months. However, China’s failure to alert the public occurred in the very early stages as the country failed to stress the severity of the new disease that would later kill 126,000 and infect almost 2 million. If China had taken action six days prior, the course of the virus could have looked much different.
Read More: China didn’t warn public of likely pandemic for 6 key days
