When the title doesn't jive with the contents

An AP story (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/china-didnt-warn-public-of-likely-pandemic-for-6-key-days_n_5e96e5a2c5b6ac7eb2631d5d) provides perhaps the first detailed reports of early Chinese response to COVID-19 to the English audience.  Facts contained in the news article remarkably fit what have been reported all along, mostly in the Chinese media months earlier, so nothing new here.  But the question is, is the title "China didn't warn public of likely pandemic for 6 key days" justified?  The 6 days refers to from Jan 14, when China said no human-to-human transmission, to Jan 20, when the transmission was announced.

Notice the title includes "likely", which is curious as to what it means.  Because at the time there was no evidence of pandemic, a country-wide or more strictly, per WHO, a global event.  AP translated the Chinese words to "pandemic" loosely, when the actual Chinese is at worst "大规模流行性传染病", or large scale infectious disease.  Maybe there was an endemic, but all cases were Wuhan residents then.  Even the Thailand ones.  If one applies the same logic or criterion, the world will have a pandemic once every three months or more frequently, and we would be shutdown permanently.

Much has been said about the assertion that "no human-to-human transmission" on Jan 14.  The situation was more nuanced than the simplistic reporting since then.  There were daily briefings by experts and officials at the time, the same people would address the same subjects over and over, and the languages were subtle.  For people outside China, it is easy to manipulate the public opinions.  Even Chinese can miss it too if oblivious.  But the words used at the time, well reported indeed, was not of absolute certainty.  The actual sentences or the best English translation is: there is no clear evidence yet of human-to-human transmission, human-to-human transmission cannot be ruled out, and human-to-human transmission is limited.  If seen in this light, the explanation is not someone trying to hide sth, but someone not sure what was happening, entirely natural when faced with a new virus for the first time.

With hindsight of the COVID-19 outbreak, people tend to or prefer to forget it was the common cold/flu season.  Most patients going to the hospitals had the similar symptoms but not COVID-19.  There were reports/guesses of early COVID-19 transmissions, but merely a few were confirmed only retrospectively (test kits coming later), and most other suspected transmissions were likely just cold/flu.  In fact, it was not an easy feat to find a new disease from so many similar cold/flu cases in late Dec.  Clustering around the wet market helped.   

More information was shed or refined last week in Chinese news and reported by this AP news.  That is, the first test kits were developed and provided around Jan 13-16, a reasonable timeline considering when the virus was sequenced.  Everybody knows that, without a test kit, one can't make a definite diagnosis.  Even with a test kit, it took time to get results, and as so well appreciated by now, a false negative can still cloud one's judgment.  And a positive test doesn't automatically mean human-to-human transmission, either, since he might have got it from the wet market too.

All the reasoning had been given in my Feb 9 blog.  From a scientific standpoint, one needs backup from solid evidence.  There was simply no strong evidence of human-to-human transmission available on Jan 14.  Retrospective evidence can identify mistakes, but is not enough to say your Sunday night quarterback wants your team to lose.  The only thing that might justify warning on Jan 14 is the knowledge of a new CoV pathogen, as previous known CoVs transmit between humans (Feb 9 blog).  But again, with few diagnoses at the time, it was confusing what it could do.

Thus, the Jan 14 episode is hardly incriminating as the prevailing yet simplistic news suggests.  But a bigger problem is the phrase "didn't warn the public".  One must note, though, that "warn" is more a statement of an opinion than of a fact.  In essence, the title implies China didn't warn the public about the disease-you can't say pandemic when there was none.  But AP doesn't say it explicitly.  Because AP knows it is false.

Aside from the fact that WHO was notified on Dec 31 unofficially and on Jan 3 officially, along with other countries, Chinese media have been talking about the new disease since late Dec.  Medical experts and officials were giving updates almost daily, which were reported prominently, since early Jan.  If someone didn't know, it was his fault, not anybody else's.  Now, if you ask did anyone predict, know, and then warn about a pandemic like the one on April 15, the answer is no.  But should anybody get blamed for not warning about the March 15 or April 15 pandemic on Jan 14 or 20, when there was none?

The bottom line is, by mid Jan, anybody with an internet or TV in China had heard about and learned quite something about the disease.  What remained uncertain was its additional features.  The government might prepare for the worse, but informing the public needed more burden of proof and time.  The warning of human-to-human transmission on Jan 20 was a critical moment, but voluntary actions were deemed not enough.  There was no mistaking it when the Wuhan lockdown was imposed on Jan 23.

If the AP title stands, how many countries didn't warn their people?  Yes, it might be better if China had had acted 6 days earlier, with perfect hindsight, but give AP credits for pointing out many countries wasted weeks or months.  That was even with the benefits of knowing full well what COVID-19 was and what China did.  Until Feb 20, most Chinese thought if COVID-19 was contained in China, it would be over, just like in 2003.  Still, every country has to chip in.  China is trying everything the first, so it is an easy target.  But accusations against China are also perfectly applicable to other countries.  Like how much can any country vouch for its infection and death figures?