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In 2nd story in @WSJ Covid Storm series, @JNBPage and I revealed the many missteps in China that had prevented its version of CDC from detecting and stopping the virus sooner. We worked on this project for months. Hope you’ll read it. https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-cdc-built-to-stop-pandemics-stumbled-when-it-mattered-most-11597675108
As the virus raged on in late January, Xi Jinping considered two options: Plan A was to lock down the districts of Wuhan that had been hardest hit by the virus; Plan B was to shut down the whole city ...
“No cities had been shut down even during SARS. Locking down the entire Wuhan would have set back the local economy by at least five years,” said one Wuhan official in an interview later ...
But Xi chose Plan B. One of the main reasons, according to this official and others, was Wuhan’s position as a major transportation hub, increasing the risk of widespread infection.
Precisely what impact earlier Chinese action might have had is hard to say. One study by scientists in China, UK and US says that if control measures had begun 3w earlier, there would have been 95% fewer cases in China. 2w earlier: 86% fewer. 1w earlier: 66% fewer.
