WHO-convened Global Study of Origins of SARS-CoV-2: China Part:

“Methods of work…

...all site visits, meetings and interviews proposed by international experts were planned and agreed in advance…

...the Chinese team initiated epidemiological, environmental and retrospective studies, the results of which were presented in meetings before and during the visit…

...The final report describes the methods and results as presented by the Chinese team’s researchers.”

https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/who-convened-global-study-of-origins-of-sars-cov-2-china-part

"The aim of this study is to quantify the effects of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic on health services utilization in China using over four years of routine health information system data...

...Tibet and Hubei were excluded from the subnational analysis due to missing data in the pre- and post-outbreak (January and February 2020) period respectively."

Xiao H, Dai X, Wagenaar BH, et al. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on health services utilization in China: Time-series analyses for 2016–2020. Lancet Reg Health – West Pac. 2021;9.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lanwpc.2021.100122

“From February 29 through May 29, 2016, we conducted active surveillance in two hospitals and found that 13% of all patients admitted with ARI met the PUE case definition.

None of the respiratory specimens tested were positive for avian influenza.

Only one PUE case was reported to the local CDC; however, it was not reported to the national system because the specimen tested negative for avian influenza virus.

Our findings raise questions about the feasibility of using the existing PUE case definition to identify respiratory infections of public health significance.

Extrapolating our results, if clinicians reported all illnesses meeting the PUE case definition from China’s more than 20,000 hospitals, the number of PUE cases identified would be in the hundreds of thousands per year.

Such numbers would overwhelm the public health system’s capacity for laboratory testing and epidemiologic investigations.”

Xiang, N., Song, Y., Wang, Y. et al. Lessons from an active surveillance pilot to assess the pneumonia of unknown etiology surveillance system in China, 2016: the need to increase clinician participation in the detection and reporting of emerging respiratory infectious diseases. BMC Infect Dis 19, 770 (2019).

https://doi.org/10.1186/s12879-019-4345-0

"The documented rapid increase in all-cause mortality and pneumonia-specific deaths in the third week of 2020 indicated that virus transmission was widespread among the population of Wuhan by the first week of 2020.

The steep increase in mortality that occurred one to two weeks later among the population in the Hubei Province outside Wuhan suggested that the epidemic in Wuhan preceded the spread in the rest of Hubei Province."

WHO-convened Global Study of Origins of SARS-CoV-2:China Part
https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/who-convened-global-study-of-origins-of-sars-cov-2-china-part

"Another aspect of the Wuhan quarantine has been its hasty nature.

Even now, after several days of quarantine, no specific plan has been issued, suggesting no preparations were made at all before the announcement.

What should be done to settle or assist the estimated one million refugees from Wuhan who made it out before the quarantine was implemented?

During the quarantine period, how would food, water and other basic necessities be provided to residents of the city?

How would medical personnel at hospitals and clinics be provided with the medicines and other essentials?

How would the authorities deal with urgent transportation needs, such as medical staff getting to and from work and patients getting to hospitals for medical treatment?

How would law and order be maintained?

The government has so far offered no explanation for how these and many other urgent questions are being dealt with...

...The results of this are already becoming clear.

First, we are seeing a shortage of supplies of essential household goods in Wuhan, and inflation is out of control.

The city was closed off early in the morning on January 23, and by noon the price of vegetables had already skyrocketed, some vegetables priced up to hundreds of yuan per half-kilo.

By afternoon that same day, many supermarkets in the city had been entirely cleaned out."

Staff CMP. The Truth About “Dramatic Action.” China Media Project. January 27, 2020. https://chinamediaproject.org/2020/01/27/dramatic-actions/

"Chinese police punished frontline doctors for “spreading rumours” for trying to warn the public in late December.

Police are still engaged in a campaign to detain Chinese netizens for spreading so-called “rumours”.

Rumours included reports of potential cases, including people turned away from hospitals or dying without ever being tested and quickly cremated, criticism of the government, the distribution of masks, or the criticism of the discrimination of people from Wuhan or others who may be infected.

Activists have been threatened with jail if they share foreign news articles or post on social media about the coronavirus outbreak.

That the Chinese government can lock millions of people into cities with almost no advance notice should not be considered anything other than terrifying."

Eve F. China’s reaction to the coronavirus outbreak violates human rights. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/02/chinas-reaction-to-the-coronavirus-outbreak-violates-human-rights. February 2, 2020.

"The outbreak is Xinjiang’s second since China’s initial wave of coronavirus infections was brought under control in March.

Home to 11 million Uyghurs, a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority, the region has been subjected to a sweeping security and religious crackdown in recent years.

The US State Department estimates that up to 2 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities could have been detained in internment camps.

During China’s initial outbreak, Xinjiang was subjected to strict lockdown measures on par with those imposed in the city of Wuhan – the original epicenter of the virus, despite having reported only some 70 cases and three deaths."

Gan N. China is testing millions of people in Xinjiang for Covid-19 after one asymptomatic case found. CNN. October 26, 2020. https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/26/asia/xinjiang-kashgar-coronavirus-intl-hnk/index.html

"China suspends social media accounts criticizing COVID policy...

...Criticism has largely focused on heavy-handed enforcement of regulations, including open-ended travel restrictions that saw people confined to their homes for weeks, sometimes sealed inside without adequate food or medical care.

Anger was also vented over the requirement that anyone who potentially tested positive or had been in contact with such a person be confined for observation in a field hospital, where overcrowding, poor food and hygiene were commonly cited.

The social and economic costs eventually prompted rare street protests in Beijing and other cities, possibly influencing the party’s decision to swiftly ease the strictest measures."

China suspends social media accounts criticizing COVID policy. PBS NewsHour. January 7, 2023. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/china-suspends-social-media-accounts-criticizing-covid-policy

"On April 8, 2020, the Chinese government lifted its lockdown of Wuhan.

It had lasted 76 days — two and a half months during which no one was allowed to leave this industrial city of 11 million people, or even leave their homes.

Until the Chinese government deployed this tactic, a strict batten-down-the-hatches approach had never been used before to combat a pandemic.

Yes, for centuries infected people had been quarantined in their homes, where they would either recover or die.

But that was very different from locking down an entire city; the World Health Organization called it “unprecedented in public health history.”...

...For the next two years, harsh lockdowns remained China’s default response whenever there was an outbreak anywhere in the country.

But by March 2022, when the government decided to lock down much of Shanghai after a rise in cases in that city, there was no more talk of patriotism.

People reacted with fury, screaming from their balconies, writing bitter denunciations on social media, and, in some cases, committing suicide.

When a fire broke out in an apartment building, residents died because the police had locked their doors from the outside."

McLean JN Bethany. COVID Lockdowns Were a Giant Experiment. It Was a Failure. Intelligencer. October 30, 2023. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/covid-lockdowns-big-fail-joe-nocera-bethany-mclean-book-excerpt.html

WHO Director-General's statement on IHR Emergency Committee on Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV)

30 January 2020

"As I have said repeatedly since my return from Beijing, the Chinese government is to be congratulated for the extraordinary measures it has taken to contain the outbreak, despite the severe social and economic impact those measures are having on the Chinese people...

...The speed with which China detected the outbreak, isolated the virus, sequenced the genome and shared it with WHO and the world are very impressive, and beyond words.

So is China’s commitment to transparency and to supporting other countries...

...As you know, I was in China just a few days ago, where I met with President Xi Jinping.

I left in absolutely no doubt about China’s commitment to transparency, and to protecting the world’s people."

https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-statement-on-ihr-emergency-committee-on-novel-coronavirus-(2019-ncov)