Dali L. Yang writes:

Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province, was getting ready in early January for the Jan. 6-17 “two sessions,” where local and provincial leaders would gather to discuss the state of affairs at the local/provincial levels. These sessions take place annually throughout China, and authorities mobilize stability maintenance systems to get rid of troublemakers and forestall protests. Local authorities are also motivated by the desire to hide undesirable developments from Beijing.

When experts from Beijing arrived to investigate the atypical pneumonia outbreak, Wuhan officials tried to avoid two things: upsetting Beijing; or causing a public panic in advance of these two important meetings. So they took a multipronged approach to control information about the outbreak.

Between Dec. 31 and Jan. 20, China’s National Health Commission (NHC) dispatched three teams of experts to Wuhan. The first two teams struggled to gather evidence that the novel coronavirus was transmittable from human to human. They were stymied by local interests intent on keeping the epidemic under wraps so that their political bosses could hold their annual meetings in a calm atmosphere. [Continue reading…]