II: Secrets and Lies
Timeline: January 1 - 14 2020
The first days of 2020 saw the Chinese government finally break their silence and advise the American CDC about the outbreak. It was now characterised as such, with 47 patients believed to be affected, eleven seriously ill, and over 100 “close contacts”, a phrase unheard till then but which the whole world would soon come to recognise and fear, all being monitored. The National Institute of Viral Disease Control Prevention was busily ruling out several variants of influenza, as the disease had first been suspected being, and certain other common respiratory viruses. Genetic testing and sequencing revealed the virus to be a strain of coronavirus, which they named 2019-nCov. Having alerted the USA to the bare bones of the outbreak, the Chinese National Health Commission issued instructions prohibiting the release of any information on the virus. The shutters, having lifted the tiniest bit, were slamming back down again, and while the world would soon learn the true meaning of the word lockdown, China was executing its own informational one. No data got out of the country, nobody else was advised, no warnings were sent and no information shared. China’s pathological need to control everything about its people and its country would help to undo the entire globe.
And the new year was yet only three days old.
There was, however, one “whistleblower” in the country, and he did what he could to try to alert everyone. Naturally, he was repressed, punished and threatened for daring to speak the truth and look beyond party loyalty.
Dr. Li Wenliang
An ophthalmologist by profession, Li had worked at the Eye Centre of Xiamen University until 2014, when he transferred to the Wuhan Central Hospital. On December 30 2019 he shared information his colleagues had that seemed to indicate the virus was a SARS-coronavirus, and pretty immediately he was summoned by the hospital board, accused of spreading “false information”, after which the police arrested him as part of their investigation into his claims, censured him and warned him to retract his statement and make no more on pain of actual charges being brought against him. Having done so, on his return to the hospital Li contracted the virus himself, and on January 31, 23 days after falling ill, he published details of his interview with, and threat by the police on social media. The post quickly went viral, as people began to ask why the hospital had tried to silence him?
He was not the only one to be reprimanded, but the Chinese Supreme Court took a more sympathetic view, noting that "It might have been a fortunate thing if the public had believed the 'rumors' then and started to wear masks and carry out sanitization measures, and avoid the wild animal market."
In other words, the Supreme Court was either defending the whistle-blowers or possibly reprimanding the hospital, and through it, the party for trying to silence voices that were trying to alert China to the seriousness of the developing situation. Tragically, as Li returned to work and contracted the virus, he fell very ill and had to be hospitalised. He died on February 6, less than a month after contracting Covid. Chinese state media tried to cover their arses, pretending he was still alive when his heartbeat had already stopped, finally admitting that he was dead eight hours later.
The Pandemic is filled with the work of heroes, most of whom remain unsung and unknown, a few of which have received the honour they deserve. A phrase developed over the last two years: not all superheroes wear capes. It’s true: mostly they wear white or blue coats, masks and face shields, hi-viz jackets and other uniforms of the front-line staff who gave their lives on the line, and in some countries continue to do so, for the people they try to save. If Dr. Li was the first true victim, the first of millions of deaths from Covid-19, his death would be a harbinger for a pattern that would replicate itself across the globe as medical health professionals, care workers and staff in hospitals braved the dangers of the Pandemic in order to provide comfort and care to those who needed it most at such a time. So many would lose their lives that it would become nothing short of a scandal, fingers pointing to governments who skimped on essential protective equipment for their medical and healthcare staff.
Dr. Li’s death was not in vain, nor was he alone in succumbing early to the virus. Six more doctors died by June, and the internet was alive with expressions of sympathy for Li, and anger at the intransigence and arrogance of the Wuhan Hospital and the Chinese government, neither of whom offered any apology for how the doctor was treated, though they did pay tribute to him. A protest campaign began to gather momentum across China under the hashtag #WeWantFreedomOfSpeech, with two million views accumulated before the ever-repressive censor removed it. But like they say, once something goes up on the internet it’s there forever, and removing the hashtag did nothing to dampen the demand of Chinese people - and those outside the country too - for the truth behind the Coronavirus and its dangers. Academicians began to speak out, and a small protest was held in New York’s Central Park.
Finally, in April, Li was honoured as a Chinese martyr, the highest honour the country can award.
Fortune magazine awarded him top spot in a list of
World’s Greatest Leaders: 25 Heroes of the Pandemic.
Back to January though. On January 4 the United Nations activated their incident response team, the World Health Organisation (WHO) stood ready and the US CDC offered to send representatives to Wuhan to investigate the outbreak. Given the state of relations between the two countries, to say nothing of President Trump’s ultra-militant stance against China’s trade agreements, this was never likely to be an offer that would be accepted. Across the mainland, Hong Kong geared up for tight restrictions, its own University’s Centre for Infection warning that it was “highly likely” the virus was jumping from human to human. With Chinese New Year just over the horizon, they worried about a sudden surge in cases as people mixed and mingled. Though many might wear masks, not enough was known about the virus yet to indicate that this would be enough protection.
On that same day, Singapore was notified of its first possible case, a three-year-old girl from China who had been in Wuhan. On January 7 the CDC in America issued their first travel notice, warning (but not banning) people against travelling to Wuhan city. The next day South Korea seemed to have identified their first case, a middle-aged woman, again from China and again from Wuhan. She was placed in isolation and underwent observation.
The Virus Claims its First Victim
January 8 marked the first death - or at least, the first recorded/reported death - from the virus that was to take millions and make tens of millions sick over the next two years. A man who was a regular at the Huanan Market, and who also had what we came to be used to hearing of as “underlying medical conditions” - in his case, chronic liver disease - died of heart failure and pneumonia. The agent of his death was traced as the Coronavirus, at this time still called 2019-nCov, known by medical professionals to be a coronavirus but still seen as a “mystery virus” by the world at large. In some circles it earned the name of the “Wuhan Virus” (a variant of which name would later be jumped on by the Trump administration and widened to take in all of China) and was also known generally and referred to as the novel coronavirus.
At this point it should be noted that, Dr. Li and his six associates aside, no other healthcare provider had been infected, or at least, reported as being so. But the Chinese must have known: if Dr. Li had contracted it from a patient, then surely the virus was jumping from one human body to another? Easy to be Captain Hindsight of course: at this point in our lives we were all pretty much blissfully unaware of the threat posed by the virus, and how soon, in relative terms, it would be crossing our own borders and knocking at our doors.
On January 10 Dr. Li contracted the virus and immediately isolated himself, hoping to save his family, though his parents caught it too. They recovered and survived while he was not so lucky. As close contacts began to be monitored, rising to 700 in all, what we would grow to see as usual began to happen: hospital ICUs in Wuhan began to fill up and overflow, with patients being turned away as there was no capacity to look after them. The WHO, acting on information released by the Chinese government, advised that there was no evidence that the virus travelled from person to person. This may have been caution, an educated guess or an outright lie, there’s no way to know. But one thing is certain: China was not in any way sharing all it knew, and people would die as a result.
But let’s be clear here. I’m not condoning what they did, in fact I’m condemning them for it. They concealed information, downplayed the seriousness of the outbreak and threatened those who were ready to tell the truth. All horrible, reprehensible actions, and all very much in line with what we would expect of China. And as I said in the above paragraph, because of this, people died, and many more would die. But can we really put our hands on our hearts and say that had this broken out in another country that they would not have done the same? Russia? They certainly would have buried the information, and probably literally anyone who spoke of it or even tried to lift a whistle, never mind blow one. North Korea? Would surely have even denied such a thing could occur in their country and would never take responsibility for what they had let loose on the world. And America? Well, possibly under any other administration - Clinton, Obama, Biden, hell, even the Bushes, either one - you would hope, at least, that they would have done the right thing.
But we don’t have to speculate about how the Trump administration would have handled it, because we saw it. When the virus finally arrived in America, Trump and his party played it down, all but pretended it didn’t exist, then that it was going away. They ignored science and demonised those who spoke the language of health and safety, and eventually weaponised the pandemic against their own countrymen. So no, had this broken out in the USA at the time it did, with the Oval Office occupied by who it was then, I know for almost a fact that it would have been hushed up, shoved under the carpet, denied and ignored. Britain, run by a sort of Trump-lite, probably would have followed a similar path.
Sure, there are some countries you would imagine might have been more forthcoming, though really, in such a situation there’s no telling what politicians might do. They always consider their career, their re-election prospects and their future first, and that of the country second, so it might have been the same no matter where this virus broke out. So while we can definitely condemn and castigate China for its lack of responsibility and its failure in its duty of care to the wider world, we can’t be surprised and we can’t say it would not have happened anywhere else.
At any rate, it did happen and by now the virus seemed to have spread for the first time outside China, as a woman in Thailand was reported to be displaying the same symptoms. But so far, this was still Asia, and a long way away from us here in Europe, the UK and America. It still seemed like “their” problem.
It wouldn’t take long before it was everyone’s problem.