Timeline: How did China warn the world about the coronavirus outbreak?

Recently, some politicians in certain countries have been hyping up claims that China should be held accountable for the pandemic, accusing China of covering up information about the COVID-19 outbreak.

They have often criticized so-called lack of transparency from China. However, facts speak otherwise.

On December 27 last year, Zhang Jixian, a respiratory doctor in Wuhan, which was hardest hit by the coronavirus outbreak, was the first to alert authorities of a new contagious disease after treating patients with flu-like symptoms. Meanwhile, the city's health officials started an investigation into the viral outbreak.

Within three days, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission sent out an urgent notification about an outbreak of pneumonia of unknown causes in the city, and started releasing briefings on the disease since December 31. National experts were also sent to investigate the epidemic on site.

At that time, there were still dozens of days away from the first case reports in the United States and many European countries, which were later hit hard by the virus.

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