Mao could not have imagined a fire like this. Mysterious new cluster of pneumonia cases. They couldnt count the bodies. The moment when a worldwide catastrophe was born. Chaos in wuhan. What did the chinese hide . The government of wuhan was saying shut up. Be quiet about this. The virus was silently moving through the population. The men who hid the truth. They made it much worse for the Chinese People. They contributed to a pandemic that swept the globe. One man who told the truth. You know, this could be me. Whistles for a whistleblower. Rage from a devastated people. Outpouring of grief. Chinas furious battle to stop the killer covid. They used brutal measures. No question about it. A country and a leader desperate to hold off to newfound global stature. The greatest threat to their control since the Tiananmen Square uprising. Words of praise i spoke with president xi and theyre working very, very hard. Turned to darker rhetoric. You should ask china. China was very secretive, very, very secretive. As the battle that began in china becomes a world war. Holy [ bleep ], this is going pandemic. Good evening. Im fareed zakaria. Once upon a time there was just one person, a single patient in wuhan, china with a fever and a cough. How did we go from that first case to a global catastrophe . Could the virus have been stopped or slowed down . What happened in the earliest days when doctors and local officials knew they were at war with a brandnew virus, untreatable, contiguous, deadly . This is the story of china and covid19. What did the Chinese Government know and when did they know it . The story begins on a beautiful night last fall. The biggest celebration in chinas history. The 70th anniversary of the peoples republic of china. A spectacular eruption of joy and pride and victory. For a country that had risen from thirdworld deprivation to dazzling firstworld power in just a few decades. 70 years ago china was desperately poor. It had a very low standard of living. The Life Expectancy was among the poorest countries in the world. Today here you are in beijing at a moment when you are rivaling the United States for power and economic splendor. At the center of it all president xi jinping, a leader with new, extraordinary powers. In china today people call xi jinping the chairman of everything. He and in charge of the military. Hes in charge of the party. Hes in charge of the state. He runs all of the most important institutions that oversee the judiciary, the press, public life, private life. China hasnt had a leader with this much authority since chairman mao was alive in the 1970s. Xi rules the most contradictory land on earth. A proudly communist country exploding with hypercapitalism under a secretive authoritarian region. In just a few weeks all of those forces would come together in a perfect storm when an unseen enemy invaded wuhan, china. It is middecember when sick people begin streaming into hospitals with a mysterious illness. You dont know what your patients have. All they know is that they suddenly had a bunch of pneumonia patients and it seemed to be quite dangerous, these patients were very sick. Wuhan is home to 11 Million People, about the size of new york city and los angeles together. It is a gleaming modern city with dozens of shiny skyscrapers, eightlane highways. Like much of china, the new and old are all mixed together in a tugofwar between explosive growth and ageold customs. Like wet markets. Some are dangerously unsanitary. With wild animals slaughtered on site. Such markets can be ideal breeding grounds for animaltohuman transmission of a virus, and some who had the mystery illness had been to that same wuhan wet market. On december 30th with case numbers growing, doctors at wuhan Central Hospital begin to raise alarms. So these doctors started talking to each other. 27 cases of a strange pneumonia in wuhan, china. Wow. One of them, dr. Li wenliang, tells a small group of doctors on social media. He sent it out as an advisory to other doctors to say, hey, be on the lookout for this. Something is happening. And he asked them not to circulate the news, but of course it got out. With rumors swirling, Health Officials decide to go public. December 31st china tells the World Heath Organization about the illness. Officials claim it is not spreading. The virus was silently moving through the population while the Political Leadership was continuing on business as usual. The next day eight doctors are detained and interrogated for spreading rumors about the disease. Chinese officials have arrested several people for spreading fake news online. Then an order from the wuhan health commission. Doctors cannot report new cases without approval from highlevel officials. The government of wuhan was saying shut up. Be quiet about this. Baked into the essence of chinese politics is the sense that you dont air dirty laundry. January 9th [ speaking Foreign Language ] scientists have identified the illness as a new coronavirus, still, they say, it does not appear to be transmissible. This as family members of patients are falling ill. Over the course of the next couple of weeks while this information was being suppressed, the virus continued to grow. All of this is happening during the season of celebration around chinese new year. It is a time when hundreds of millions of people travel. Its also a time when the communist party holds important meetings and events. In wuhan they held a banquet for thousands of people, all together eating dinner in one place. It was a political pageant, and the local political leaders were determined not to disrupt the political calender. A potluck dinner for 40,000 people to get that dinner into the guinness book of world records. Thats right, with a virus racing through the city, local officials are trying to break a record for the largestever potluck dinner. Which turned into a giant superspreader event and increased the epidemic enormously. Disaster. During this time, early to midjanuary, wuhan hospitals are filling with covid patients, yet City Health Authorities report no new cases for weeks. Sort of shut it down at that shut it down. There is strong incentive to keep the information away from the public. This man is a Global Health expert who was in contact with the chinese cdc during the crisis. Evidence suggesting humantohuman transmission indeed occurring made the situation even worse. Meanwhile, the virus becomes international news. A mysterious pneumonia outbreak in wuhan, china. [ speaking Foreign Language ] with limited information cnn files its first report. Theyve ruled out sars. Theyve ruled out mers but they dont know what it is. And one Health Experts that we talked to here at the Chinese University of hong kong says its likely a brandnew viral pneumonia. As the story spreads around the world beijing gets worried. A team of chinese cdc investigators is dispatched to wuhan. And the team leader gets sick. The leader of that Investigation Team himself was infected. He said, had i known how serious this was, i would be more careful. What happens next may be the most when a worldwide pandemic is born. First, a major development. The virus appears in another country. Thailand has reported the first case of the wuhan coronavirus found outside of china. Then a critical meeting. Top medical officials in beijing and wuhan hold a teleconference. By that time already the local governments knew their Health Care Workers being infected. The Associated Press obtained documents revealing that during that teleconference officials acknowledged that the virus could become a pandemic. The highest level Emergency Response was issued but only inside the government. It would be six more days, january 20th, before president xi jinping would warn the world that china had a serious problem. There is humantohuman transmission of this virus. All Chinese People should stay away from wuhan. Why did chinas leadership wait until six days after that teleconference to tell the Chinese People and the world . In those six days tens of thousands of people travel in and out of wuhan. Do you think that the people, the local officials in wuhan and hubei, were they covering this up . I believe theres a coverup going on. Theres no question there was a coverup. Everything we know about the way the chinese political system works tells us that the local government was probably a scapegoat. The new yorkers evan osnos says there is no question the crisis was handled from the top. Whether or not xi jinping knew about it in the very beginning or whether he heard about it a few days later, i find it implausible to imagine that the Central Government was not aware of the epidemic from its earliest moments. The reality is that china has effectively created a system of information transfer internally, in secrecy. Don mcneil of the New York Times sees it differently. Well, this notion that everything happens from the top, that the emperor knows where every sparrow falls, to me, is kind of ridiculous and that has been glommed on to by the Trump Administration, which is desperate, desperate to shift the blame. A spokesman for the Chinese ForeignMinistry Said there was no coverup. [ speaking Foreign Language ] but whether because of fear, indecision or an instinct to suppress bad news, beijing waited before revealing what it knew. January 21st, the first known case in america. Its on the west coast. A man in Washington State has the same virus that has sickened about 300 people in china, killing at least six. American Intelligence Services are worried. They have been warning the white house this is worse than were being told. Donald trump would repeatedly dismiss those concerns. Its going to disappear. One day, its like a miracle, it will des pier. Because of all weve done, the risk to the American People remains very low. Were working very closely with china and other countries and we think its going to have a very good ending for us. And as he is pushing a trade deal with china, trump speaks of president xi in glowing terms. President xi loves the people of china, he loves his country, and hes doing a very good job with a very, very tough situation. Then the american president tweets to thank china for its transparency. Come here. Days later one of trumps top china trade officials would write a memo warning the virus could become a pandemic. Still trump downplayed the danger. January 23rd, finally the order comes down from beijing, lock down wuhan. Now the city where the virus began will be cut off from the world. All the flights, all the trains, all the highways, all the busses. Crowds swarmed train stations and airports. Residents who may carry the infection are given a few hours to leave. Cnn correspondent david culver is in wuhan as thousands are fighting to get out. This gives you an idea of how seriously people are taking this idea to leave wuhan and get out before Public Transportation is strictly limited. As the city turns into a ghost town. All hell break loose at hospitals. The people were dying. It was total chaos in the hospitals at wuhan and thats why the numbers were so bad. They couldnt count the bodies. They couldnt test. They didnt have tests. Western journalists have little access to what is going on inside the fight against covid, but New York Times reporter Donald Mcneil is following the crisis closely. Holy [ bleep ], this is going pandemic. It looked like what i know the beginning of a pandemic looks like, you know, chaos, terrified people, people flooding in the hospital. You want to say get out, get out, stay home. Youre infecting each other. I couldnt sleep that night. Up next, whistles for a whistleblower. The decision to silence dr. Li proved to be a catastrophe. For a doctor who dared to tell the truth. Hey mama, whats up . I only see one price on my phone bill. Youre on tmobile, taxes and fees are included. Why cant all my bills be like this . I dont know mama. Umph with tmobile, taxes and fees are included. And when you switch your family, get 4 lines of unlimited for just 35 a line. There are so many toothpastes out there, which one should i use . Try crest pro active defense. It neutralizes bacteria for a healthier mouth than even the leading multibenefit toothpaste. Crest. When you have nausea, upset stomach, diarrheaon, pepto bismol coats and soothes your stomach for fast relief and now, get the same fast relief in a delightful chew with new pepto bismol chews. On december 30th an opthalmologist at wuhan Central Hospital sent a private message in a group chat. It was an advisory to other doctors warning of a deadly and terrifying new virus. He asked them not to circulate the news, but of course it got out. Immediately it caught fire on social media. You have a young doctor who is trying to do the right thing, and yet rather than celebrate him, the Chinese Government detains him. Chinese authorities summoned dr. Li wenliang to the Police Station in the middle of the night and interrogated him. He was disciplined. He was called a rumor monger. He was told to keep his mouth shut and forced to sign a document describing what he had done as a mistake. Dr. Li had broken a Cardinal Rule in china. Under xi jinping, the consequences for saying the wrong thing have become much harsher. The decision to silence dr. Li proved to be a catastrophe. Over the next few weeks as the disease spread across wuhan, citizens uploaded scenes of a medical system that was completely overwhelmed. Hundreds of people lined up in hospital corridors crowding their way in. Theres dead bodies on the hospital floors. People scream. Rows of red stools people sitting on all way too close together. Among the infected patients was dr. Li himself. First he was persecuted for sounding the alarm. Dr. Li wenliang has died of the coronavirus infection. He was killed by the same virus he bravely had tried to stop. Li wenliang was an ordinary man who believed in the truth, his mother said. She said her son never told a lie, even when he was a child. [ speaking Foreign Language ] days before his death dr. Li said, i believe there should be more than one voice in a healthy society. I think that is a statement that is going to stay with the Chinese People for a very long time. It became an anthem for a remarkable digital uprising. The death of dr. Li was the trigger for an extraordinary outpouring of public anguish. Any ordinary chinese would find resonance in dr. Li that, you know, this could be me. They blew whistles to honor li as a whistleblower and a national hero. Around the world people joined the chorus. Millions posted tributes to dr. Li on chinese social media. We saw the government go and take down posts. Wewantfreedomofspeech was briefly trending online. Remember how extraordinary that is in a country known for the largest and most sophisticated online censorship system in the world. It was such an outpouring of outrage that it swamped the usual chinese censorship system. They simply could not keep up. The Chinese People were furious about dr. Lis death and the initial coverup of the severity of the outbreak. As the virus spread peoples anger got even louder. [ speaking Foreign Language ] theres no question the Chinese Communist party looked at the outpouring of rage about their handling of the virus in wuhan and saw this as the greatest threat to their control since the Tiananmen Square uprising in 1989. China, of course, famously crushed dissent with brute force at Tiananmen Square. But this time in a rare move the Central Government allowed for a limited opening of protests online. They didnt want to clamp down entirely. They needed to maintain some kind of safety valve. Allow this outpouring of grief and rage to spill out in the relative confines of the internet. Otherwise it was going to end up in the streets. The regime quickly turned to another tool in its arsenal, propaganda. Overnight they made a switch. Instead of dr. Li being an enemy of the state, all of a sudden he became the hero. In some ways what they did was an act of political desperation. The Chinese Government pointed out that dr. Li was no dissident. He was a proud member of the communist party. The government awarded dr. Li wenliang one of the highest honors. It called him a martyr. As chinas measures to contain the virus seemed to work, a sense of National Pride began to grow. In early march with the disease seemingly under control, xi went to wuhan himself. They wanted to create this very clear impression of this one man leading this National Response against the virus. This is the man who has led you out of harms way. And all of the powers of propaganda and political engineering were directed to fortify the image of his leadership. Chinas Eventual Success in containing the virus and its efforts to reframe the narrative appear to have worked within its own borders. Propaganda works. People forget about the mistakes and they forgive them for the errors they made. Coming up, the man