President Xi knew the virus situation was dire and the risk of contagion was high by January 14th, which was the same day WHO downplayed the outbreak.
The Associated Press reported on Tuesday night that leaked internal documents from China show that Xi knew.
WHO TWEETED THE SAME DAY
One that day, the WHO tweeted: “Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China”
Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China🇨🇳. pic.twitter.com/Fnl5P877VG
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) January 14, 2020
THIS IS “TREMENDOUS”
Xi took over the coronavirus disaster on January 7th and definitely knew the seriousness of the situation by January 14th.
China didn’t tell the world that the coronavirus could be spread from human-to-human until January 20. Thousands died during that delay.
“In the six days after top Chinese officials secretly determined they likely were facing a pandemic from a new coronavirus, the city of Wuhan at the epicenter of the disease hosted a mass banquet for tens of thousands of people; millions began traveling through for Lunar New Year celebrations,” the AP reported. “President Xi Jinping warned the public on the seventh day, Jan. 20. But by that time, more than 3,000 people had been infected during almost a week of public silence, according to internal documents obtained by The Associated Press and expert estimates based on retrospective infection data.”
Zuo-Feng Zhang, an epidemiologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, told the AP that the revelation is “tremendous.”
“If they took action six days earlier, there would have been much fewer patients and medical facilities would have been sufficient,” Zhang said. “We might have avoided the collapse of Wuhan’s medical system.”
“The six-day delay by China’s leaders in Beijing came on top of almost two weeks during which the National Center for Disease Control did not register any cases from local officials, internal bulletins obtained by the AP confirm,” the AP continued. “Yet during that time, from Jan. 5 to Jan. 17, hundreds of patients were appearing in hospitals not just in Wuhan but across the country.”
THE LEAKED DOCUMENTS
The leaked documents obtained by the AP “show that the head of China’s National Health Commission, Ma Xiaowei, laid out a grim assessment of the situation on Jan. 14 in a confidential teleconference with provincial health officials.”
A memo showed that the teleconference was held to give instructions from Xi and other top Chinese communist officials.
“The epidemic situation is still severe and complex, the most severe challenge since SARS in 2003, and is likely to develop into a major public health event,” the memo cites Ma as saying.
A section of the memo titled “sober understanding of the situation,” stated that “clustered cases suggest that human-to-human transmission is possible.”
“With the coming of the Spring Festival, many people will be traveling, and the risk of transmission and spread is high,” the memo said. “All localities must prepare for and respond to a pandemic.”
Xi knew and did nothing. He allowed the pandemic to grow out of control. He has blood on his hands.
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