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Coronavirus pandemic
ChinaPeople & Culture

Build-up to coronavirus lockdown: inside China’s decision to close Wuhan

  • Chinese doctor tells of expert team’s crisis trip to site of disease outbreak
  • Decision to seal off city and Hubei province was made to curb Lunar New Year travellers

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Li Lanjuan, a renowned Chinese epidemiologist, has revealed how crucial decisions in January were made to impose lockdown on Wuhan and Hubei province to slow the spread of Covid-19. Photo: Xinhua
Echo Xie
As China’s new confirmed Covid-19 cases have dropped to double digits for weeks and life is gradually returning to normal, one of the country’s top doctors and a member of the national expert team has revealed for the first time how the decision was made in Beijing to put the city of Wuhan, the ground zero of the coronavirus pandemic, under lockdown in January.

In two recent interviews with Chinese media, Li Lanjuan, a member of the high-level expert team convened by the National Health Commission, disclosed details of experts’ discoveries in hospitals in Wuhan and their reports to Chinese leaders in Beijing between January 17 and January 23, the day Wuhan had lockdown imposed.

Though the decision – sealing off a city with 11 million people and, one day later, 60 million in Hubei province – was deemed highly controversial, subsequent studies have found that it was a life-saving move that helped delay the arrival of the disease in other Chinese cities by at least three days. And it may have helped prevent 744,000 infections in the rest of the country by mid-February, according to a recent study published in Science magazine on Tuesday.
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Dr Li, a 72-year-old expert in epidemiology, told Global People, a People’s Daily-affiliated magazine, that on January 17 she had learned from private channels that medical staff in Wuhan had been infected with an unknown pneumonia-like disease.

By January 28, when this photo was taken, Wuhan appeared almost deserted, after lockdown was imposed on January 23. Photo: AP
By January 28, when this photo was taken, Wuhan appeared almost deserted, after lockdown was imposed on January 23. Photo: AP
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On the same day, Li contacted the National Health Commission in Beijing and asked for permission to go to Wuhan. The next day, China sent a six-member expert team, including Li and respiratory expert Zhong Nanshan, to Wuhan.

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