Originally posted on jessy.io.

March 1st.

Not strictly in chronological order:

• Nov 17th, 2019. The first case of COVID-19 was emerged (perhaps not patient 0; no contact with the Huanan Seafood Market), the government did not take it too seriously until mid-January. Many things go into this that I will not list here. Looking back, this isn't a unique problem to China, but in many governments around the world.

• The world started to get to know about this novel coronavirus end of December 2019 and early January 2020; Singapore and Hong Kong started to take action against this by measuring body temperatures of incomers from Wuhan

• Jan 13, 2020. Thailand was the first to confirm an infected case outside of China.

• Then, Jan 20. SARS hero Zhong Nanshan disclosed to the country that SARS-Cov-2 is subjected to human transmission.

  • Young people started to take it seriously and began wearing masks and avoided going to crowded places after seeing it on social media on their phones.
  • Older people usually rely on TVs, newspapers, and government promotion where information is often not up to date, so most either did not know, did not care, or held false optimism that it won't be them who is infected.

  ^^^This Tom and Jerry video was a pretty accurate representation of the gap between how young and old people felt about the outbreak on Jan 22. I think it's also applicable to what happened when China/Chinese people are warning the world about the severity of the virus.

  ^^^This Tom and Jerry video was a pretty accurate representation of the gap between how young and old people felt about the outbreak on Jan 22. I think it's also applicable to what happened when China/Chinese people are warning the world about the severity of the virus.

• Another SARS hero, Guan Yi, visited Wuhan before the lockdown and saw the apathy of many people, disregarding the outbreak. Many still went to crowded markets to purchase goods for the lunar new year, which is coming up in a few days; barely anyone has worn masks. The Huanan Seafood Market (believed to be the origin of this outbreak) was cleaned up altogether, leaving no trace for Guan Yi to sample and figure out the source of the virus. Therefore, he predicted that the novel coronavirus would infect at least 10x more people than SARS did, and the cost of salvaging this outbreak will be "geometrical."

• Jan 23. Suddenly, the city of Wuhan went to lockdown. It is a large city with 9 - 11 million in population depending on the time of year.

  • Now older people started to pay attention to the outbreak, as the government has finally begun to mention it on TV.
  • Large gatherings began to get canceled nation-wide.

• Wuhan hospitals became over-crowded, with many people rushing in (who just have regular flu or fever), trying to get tested. This causes unnecessary cross-infection between those who have COVID-19 and those who don't, and in addition, overwhelmed the medical system.

  • Doctors and nurses from other provinces were drafted to Wuhan for assistance.

• The lockdown was an urgent one. Therefore, medical, food, and basic supplies become hard to be sent in and out of Wuhan and Hubei.

  • Other provinces started to donate thousands of tons of food to Wuhan and Hubei.

• Jan 24-25. Hospitals in Wuhan began reaching out to the public outcrying for the help of PPE (personal protective equipment) donation due to the severe lack of supplies. Frontline doctors in the hospital were making protective overalls out of trash bags, DIYing their face masks, eating ramen, and biscuits for Chinese new year eve's dinner. This is unusual as Chinese hospitals would source their supplies directly from the government, not from society, which exposes the chaos within the system.

  • The public donated money, food, and medical supplies, even those overseas around the world. However, the Chinese Red Cross was exposed to deep corruption. Something of around 90% of the donated supplies was left in the garage; the majority of the 10% supplies that got passed out were to the hospitals with personal association with officials from the Red Cross; the Red Cross also charged an absurd amount of "management fees," some donated supplies such as masks were resold in the market for tenfold the price; donated food items became take-home-gifts for the officials' families, food items like fresh vegetables were left to be rotten in many storage rooms.
  • These types of occurrences made tremendous public anger and distrust of the Chinese Red Cross (nothing new, people already don't trust them before, due to its corrupted history)
  • Food prices sky-rocket to as much as 2 to 3 times the average price in Wuhan.

• The mayor of Wuhan announced that 5 million people have got out of Wuhan before the lockdown, destined to domestic and international locations due to the Chinese new year.

• People from Wuhan or Hubei, or have ID card/phone number/car plate that would resemble their origin from the province, were chased out and rejected by people in other provinces. If they don't have their own place, many hotels wouldn't take them in (this was later resolved with designated hotels for them). If they have their own place, the local government would come find them and force quarantine them.

• Many provinces started to go into "lockdown" mode - cars from other provinces were not allowed to get to another province. Some provinces even destroyed the highway to block people from coming in.

  • Massive promotion effort from the government to tell people to stay at home, don't visit families and wear masks on the streets. In essence, we see empty streets, and everyone wearing masks in China.
  • This later caused a big problem for economic and supply chain stability.

• Hospitals and makeshift hospitals (stadiums, hotels, school dormitories) are built. To be honest, it's lucky to be infected early on when there are still medical resources and hospital beds available versus if you get it later when resources are overwhelmed.

• Many countries started to restrict those who have been to China in the past 14 days. Many countries started to evacuate their citizens from Wuhan. Quarantine was also enforced for those who have been in Wuhan for the past 14 days.

  • Some people would take medicine to suppress their body temperature to successfully pass through border control.

• Jan 30th. Tibet confirmed its first case from a traveler from Wuhan, making all provinces in China have confirmed cases.

• Jan 31st. WHO announced PHEIC (Public Health Emergency of International Concern) status on the 2019 novel coronavirus.

  • Chinese official media announced, "Shuanghuanglian," a traditional herbal medicine, was effective in suppressing the coronavirus, which induced a massive public panic to buy out this medicine; this proved to be "fake news" run by state media.

• Feb 6th. Wuhan started clinical trials on Remdesivir, the ebola-fighting drug invented by US biotechnology company Gilead, proved to be the most promising medicine for COVID-19 to date. Though it's still undergoing clinical trials.