Coronavirus Timeline

Wuhan, China experiences a dramatic increase in hospital traffic “beginning in late summer and early fall," according to a Harvard Medical School study. Dr. John Brownstein notes that there was “some level of social disruption” happening in October, “well before what was previously identified as the start of the novel coronavirus pandemic.”  

An audit internal to Hubei Province concludes that a “huge gap in staff and operating funds of the provincial CDC has seriously affected the normal performance of public health functions.”

A 55-year-old resident from Hubei province contracts COVID-19, according to data seen by the South China Morning Post, possibly the first coronavirus case.

The first coronavirus case now recognized by Chinese authorities is recorded in a Wuhan hospital. The patient was initially suspected to have been infected by an animal (likely a bat) in the Huanan Seafood Market, a narrative now in dispute as researchers propound alternative origins, including that lax security procedures in the Wuhan Institute of Virology led to its escape.

A month-long influenza outbreak begins, including in Wuhan, causing a 20-fold increase in influenza cases from the previous year. 

The first suspected human-to-human transmission is recorded by Wuhan doctors. A patient is observed to have the virus but denies ever visiting the seafood market.

Wuhan doctors suspect disease transmission from patients to medical staff, further evidence of human-to-human transmission and the first instance of a threat to health care workers. Wuhan hospitals have experienced a steady rise in infections since the first cases.

A French patient is confirmed to have the virus, marking the first known case outside of China. The sample from the patient was not analyzed until May 2020.

A Guangzhou-based genomics company sequences most of the virus, showing an “alarming similarity to…SARS.” Samples of the virus are distributed to at least six other genomics companies for testing.

Chinese social media censors introduce a list of coronavirus-related terms, including “Wuhan unknown pneumonia” and “unknown SARS,” to block from online discussions.

Taiwanese public health officials warn the World Health Organization (WHO) that the virus is spreading between humans. The WHO never publicizes the warning.

The Wuhan Public Security Bureau summons eight people to its headquarters, including Dr. Li Wenliang, who initially warned the public about the virus, accusing them of spreading “hoaxes.” Dr. Li signs a statement confessing to his “misdemeanor.” The fate of the other seven is unknown.

An official at the Hubei Provincial Health Commission orders a genomics company to cease “testing samples from Wuhan and to destroy all existing samples.” The company’s labs had sequenced the virus’s genetic code in December with results suggesting a highly infectious virus similar to SARS.

Retroactive antibody testing identified “probable” infections in people living in disparate corners of Ohio in early January.

China’s National Health Commission (NHC) orders institutions “not to publish any information related to the unknown disease” and orders labs to “transfer any samples they had to designated testing institutions or to destroy them.” The order did not specify any testing institutions.

U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director Robert Redfield receives reports on the novel coronavirus from Chinese colleagues. The chief of staff to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar informs the National Security Council.

Six days after its China Country Office was “informed of cases of pneumonia with unknown etiology” in Wuhan, the WHO “advises against the application of any travel or trade restrictions on China based on the information available on this event.”

The CDC offers to send a team to assist Chinese authorities; it never receives permission to enter the country.

Wuhan hosts annual, eleven-day meetings with local and Hubei provincial officials. Local officials reportedly “stymied” investigators from Beijing for fear of angering their superiors.

President Xi Jinping reportedly orders public officials to control the outbreak during a private meeting of top CCP leadership. The existence of the meeting was not reported by state media until February, in the face of heavy criticism from Chinese citizens.

Chinese authorities announce publicly that a novel coronavirus was behind the recent viral pneumonia outbreak.

Xinhua News Agency first reports on the outbreak.

The WHO praises the Chinese government: “Preliminary identification of a novel virus in a short period of time is a notable achievement and demonstrates China’s increased capacity to manage new outbreaks.” It also stresses that “the virus does not spread readily between people” and reiterates its advice against travel or trade restrictions on China. Privately, WHO officials were frustrated that the CCP had not yet released the virus’s genome; yet these concerns were not shared with the public

Chinese authorities share the virus’s genome with the rest of the world. The Chinese government had been in possession of the sequence since December 27.

Thailand reports its first case.

Nearly six weeks after Wuhan doctors raise the possibility of human-to-human transmission, the WHO issues a statement stressing that Chinese authorities recorded no cases of human-to-human transmission.

Hubei Provincial officials hold a teleconference with Ma Xiaowei, the head of China’s National Health Commission, who details the threat posed by the new virus. A memo from the teleconference raises the possibility of human-to-human transmission.

Japan records its first case of coronavirus.

The CCP issues an alert to all Chinese consulates “to prepare for and respond to a pandemic” by obtaining massive stocks of personal protective equipment. 

China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Beijing initiates internally its highest-level emergency response, which includes directions to hospitals to take protective precautions and to begin tracking cases. The directions are marked “not to be publicly disclosed.”

Wuhan authorities allow nearly 40,000 to gather for the Lunar New Year celebration.

Chinese state media first reports that President Xi ordered officials to stop the virus; President Xi also makes a public statement, failing to mention human-to-human transmission.

Dr. Zhong Nanshan, a leading authority on respiratory health who rose to prominence for his role fighting SARS, confirms that the disease spreads from person-to-person. The head of China’s NHC investigatory team also confirms cases of human-to-human transmission in Guangdong province, indicating spread between provinces.

The CDC confirms the first American case, a Washington resident who had returned from China six days earlier.

WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus praises China for its “cooperation” and praises Xi Jinping for his “leadership and intervention” which had been “invaluable” to responding to the outbreak. A WHO Emergency Committee concludes that the virus does not constitute a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).

France records Europe’s first and second real-time cases.

Australia and Canada record their first coronavirus cases.

The Chinese government announces it will extend the Lunar New Year Holiday until February 2.

The Chinese government suspends group travel to foreign countries (individuals would still travel abroad unencumbered), three days after massive outbound traffic begins for the Lunar New Year. Over those days, travelers journeyed to Japan, South Korea, the United States, Italy, Spain, France, the United Kingdom, and South America. The RAND Corporation estimates that, at this time, China’s reported number of infections was undercounted by a factor of nearly 40.

The WHO declares the coronavirus a global health emergency, while expressing confidence in “China’s capacity to control the outbreak.” The organization recommends against border closures, visa restrictions, and quarantining of healthy visitors from affected regions.

Several Chinese provinces and cities extend the Lunar New Year holiday until at least February 13 to halt commerce and travel.

Iran presumptively cancels all flights to and from China. Privately owned Mahan Airlines (which has links to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) continues service between Tehran and China, including Wuhan, for at least another week.

CCP authorities order residents in Atush, in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, to confine themselves in their homes for three weeks. Residents say they were given no prior warning and Uighur watchdog groups report widespread starvation in the area. Authorities never close Uighur detention camps.

Responding to the prior day’s announcement that the United States would suspend entry of foreign nationals who had visited China, Chinese officials criticize the move as “neither based in fact nor helpful” and “certainly not a gesture of goodwill.”

The first coronavirus death outside China is reported: a 44-year-old man in the Philippines.

The city of Wuhan completes construction on the makeshift Huoshenshan hospital in ten days, eliciting breathless praise from state media, which describe the accomplishment as “shocking.”

The Chinese embassy in Canberra criticizes Australia’s travel ban on entries from mainland China.

A California patient initially thought to have died from influenza is confirmed in April to be the first COVID-19 death in the U.S. The first U.S. death reported in real-time would not be until February 29 in Seattle.

Dr. Li Wenliang, considered by the Chinese public to be the foremost champion of spreading information about coronavirus, succumbs to the virus at the age of 33. His death leads to an outpouring of national anger over information suppression.

Hubei officials underreported cases by nearly half, with 2,478 reported and 5,918 recorded in internal documents. The average time from symptom onset to a positive test result is 23.3 days, and clinical diagnoses are recorded as “suspected cases” instead of “confirmed cases.” This practice would continue into the middle of the month. 

Shortly after Dr. Li’s death, the hashtag “#wewantfreedomofspeech” trends on Chinese social media platform Weibo. The same day, it is deleted by censors along with other related topics.

Xi Jinping and President Trump speak; Trump pledges assistance to China and congratulates them on their progress.

France reports the first coronavirus death in Europe: an 80-year-old Chinese tourist.

Xi Jinping calls for new legislation to improve “biosafety and biosecurity.” 

China expels three Wall Street Journal reporters in response to an op-ed headline.

Iran reports its first coronavirus cases from an unknown source.

Italy first reports a major surge in coronavirus cases; Codogno, near Milan, becomes the first Italian town to lock itself down.

In response to criticism of CCP treatment of Uighur communities during the outbreak, Wang Xining, China’s number two diplomat in Australia, calls Uighur detention camps “training centers,” where people get “training for future jobs” and where residency is “mostly voluntary.”

30,000 Uighur workers, described by some as “dispensable labor” are sent back to factories. International watchdogs describe the move as “dangerous,” turning Uighurs into “commodities of the state” who would assume the risk of infection while stimulating the Chinese economy.

The Chinese government announces plans to publish a book, Great War, that details Xi Jinping’s “strategic vision and outstanding leadership” in combatting the virus in China, alongside a demonstration of the “advantages” of the “socialist system with Chinese characteristics” in handling such a crisis.

A São Paolo man, recently returned from a trip to Italy, becomes the first coronavirus case in Latin America, according to Brazilian health officials.

Nigeria confirms the first coronavirus case in Sub-Saharan Africa, a businessman traveling from Milan to Lagos.

China Daily, a state media organ, launches a coronavirus timeline but displays no information regarding events before Jan. 25.

Xinhua contends that the “world should thank China” for its early response to the virus and touts that, unlike the U.S. government's treatment of Chinese citizens, it never imposed a travel ban on American citizens.

Hubei authorities underreport daily deaths by nearly 800, part of a weeks-long pattern of publicly underreporting death totals. 

China announces an $8 million donation to the WHO.

The WHO declares the outbreak a pandemic.

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian insinuates in a tweet that COVID-19 originated in America and was spread to China by the United States military.

Friends of Chinese businessman Ren Zhiqiang report that he has disappeared. Ren had authored an essay blasting the CCP for its slow response to the outbreak, blaming its speech restrictions for exacerbating the crisis and calling President Xi a “power-hungry clown.”

In a public address Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić blasts the European Union for failing to provide the country with aid and announces a personal appeal to President Xi for Chinese assistance, saying “the only country that can help us is China.” Serbia’s application for EU membership is still under consideration, and the CCP has long seen the nation as a way of making inroads in Europe.

Chinese operatives push misinformation across several platforms, falsely informing Americans that a mandatory federal lockdown was imminent. The strategy was intended to “induce panic.”

Xinhua News announces that President Xi, as relayed in a phone call with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, will send medical experts and supplies to Italy as part of his initiative to create a “Health Silk Road.” The supplies were, in fact, sold to the Italian government.

Xinhua News criticizes the American government for irresponsibility and incompetence while praising the “arduous effort” of the Chinese government which “provided the world with precious time” needed to organize its response.

China revokes press credentials from Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Washington Post reporters.

A train bound for Spain departs from Yiwu, China, loaded with 110,000 medical masks and 776 protective suits. The train from Yiwu to Madrid takes seventeen days (a flight takes less than one), and Chinese factories produced 110 million facemasks in February alone.

Chinese state media outlets circulate reports that “an unexplained strain of pneumonia” may have originated in Italy late in 2019.

The Hubei Provincial government lifts restrictions on Hubei Province, with the exception of Wuhan.

Huawei donates two million masks to Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Greece—countries that are still considering 5G providers. The move is highly publicized by Huawei company officials.

Spanish microbiologists report that tests sent to Spain by the CCP detected positive COVID-19 cases only 30% of the time.

Researchers from University Hospital Ostrava in the Czech Republic report that 80% of the coronavirus antibody test kits received from the Chinese government were defective, likely because antibody tests cannot detect the illness in its early stages.

The Dutch Health Ministry recalls over 600,000 faulty medical masks received from the Chinese government.

The Chinese Health Commission admits it has been omitting asymptomatic cases of coronavirus to date and will begin including asymptomatic carriers in its daily counts.

U.S. intelligence services report that the Chinese government “intentionally” under-represented its outbreak totals and that its reported numbers are “fake.”

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army stages naval combat exercises in the South China Sea in response to U.S. “territorial violations” and because “COVID-19 has significantly lowered the U.S. Navy’s warship capability in the Asia-Pacific region.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel reaches an agreement with Xi Jinping to receive large-scale shipments of medical supplies from Chinese companies.

The Washington Post reports that, in 2018, U.S. Embassy officials sent official warnings to Washington after visiting the Wuhan Institute of Virology. One cable concerned the Institute’s research on bat coronaviruses and warned that their potential transmission “represented a risk of a new SARS-like pandemic.”

Sources report that the growing consensus among U.S. officials is that the virus originated in a unit studying bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is central to China’s effort to become the global leader in identifying and combating viral outbreaks.

A spokesman for the Wuhan Institute of Virology denies any link to the pandemic, declaring that there is “absolutely no way” the virus originated in the lab.

The CCP pressures the European Union into removing references to China from a report on government misinformation and the coronavirus.

The U.S. Intelligence Community confirms that it is investigating whether the coronavirus may have originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claims that there is “enormous evidence” that the virus originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology and accuses China of blocking international investigations into the virus’s origin.

A Department of Homeland Security report concludes that the Chinese government hoarded medical supplies during the virus’s early stages. It notes a pattern of increased imports and decreased exports of medical supplies during December and January.

China Daily edits a reference to the virus’s origin in Wuhan out of an op-ed authored by 27 European ambassadors.

The Washington Post publishes an op-ed by Chinese Ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai accusing the United States of an “always blame China” mindset.

Wuhan health authorities report the city’s first cluster of cases since the city removed its lockdown order on April 8.

The New York Times reports that the United States Department of Homeland Security and Federal Bureau of Investigations are preparing to accuse Chinese hackers of attempting to steal United States research into a coronavirus vaccine.

China suspends beef imports from Australia’s four largest producers and threatens trade retaliation should Australia continue to push for an inquiry into the virus’s origins.

The Global Times, a CCP media organ, reports that China is “considering punitive countermeasures against U.S. individuals, entities, and state officials,” such as Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt and United States Senators Josh Hawley and Tom Cotton. Missouri passed legislation allowing coronavirus victims to sue the Chinese government for relief.

The CCP orders a lockdown of the city of Shulan in Northeast China and replaces a number of local leaders after a new coronavirus outbreak. This new crop of cases reportedly exhibits different symptoms and a longer incubation period than did the first outbreak.

The National People’s Congress (NPC)—seen largely as a body to rubber stamp CCP decisions—introduces a new national security law for Hong Kong that bans “treason, secession, sedition and subversion.” Critics warn that the law could mean the end of Hong Kong’s autonomy as it has existed since 1997. The U.S. Department of State declared on May 27 that Hong Kong was no longer autonomous from China.

A RAND Corporation study concludes that “China’s reported COVID-19 caseload was undercounted by a factor of nearly 40.” The report uses outbound flight data and international infection rates to estimate the proportion of Chinese residents infected with the novel coronavirus. 

Contrary to both China’s and the WHO’s initial story, the WHO updates its coronavirus timeline to indicate that a WHO office in China, and not the Chinese government, first reported the existence of a new virus to the WHO. 

Xu Zhangrun, a law professor at Tsinghua University, was detained in his home and held for a week for publishing essays criticizing Xi Jinping’s handling of the outbreak.

Chinese immunologist Dr. Li-Meng Yan, who fled from Hong Kong to the United States out of fear of “being disappeared or killed,” claims that the Chinese Communist Party knew about the virus well before they publicly announced it. 

Japan concludes in its annual defense white paper that, during the pandemic, China has been making "propaganda efforts in various manners, including the spread of disinformation, amid growing social uncertainties and confusion due to the spread of infection."

The U.S. government indicts two Chinese hackers of targeting American firms researching coronavirus treatments and testing. 

Hong Kong delays its legislative elections for a year due to a surge in COVID-19 cases. 

Chinese fighter jets cross the median line in the Taiwan Strait, violating Taiwanese airspace in retaliation for U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar’s visit to the self-governed island of Taiwan.

The International Monetary Fund reports that the Chinese economy has grown in 2020, the only country expected to do so this year.

China joins a WHO-directed vaccine effort to give vaccines to developing nations, an effort it had initially resisted. 

Denmark plans to cull nearly 17 million mink after discovering a coronavirus mutation spreading among the population. Mink is Denmark’s third largest export, with the majority going to China.

CNN obtains leaked internal documents from the Hubei Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, detailing early mishandling of the virus accompanied by misleading public statements. 

With the WHO investigation into the virus’s origins approaching, Chinese diplomat Zha Liyou advances theory that the coronavirus arrived in Wuhan via foreign frozen food shipments. 

China's foreign minister, Wang Yi, says the COVID-19 pandemic was caused by several outbreaks around the globe, not a single outbreak in Wuhan.

The World Health Organization (WHO) team investigating the origins of the coronavirus is denied entry into China due to "lack of visa clearances."

Brazilian researchers report China’s Sinovac coronavirus vaccine to be only 50.38% effective in late-stage trials, nearly 30% lower than initially announced. 

Chinese scientists and media urge Europe and Australia to discontinue use of American vaccines, which they described as hastily developed and dangerous for elderly recipients.

The CCP bans the BBC from China, citing “distorted coronavirus reports about Wuhan.”

Chinese authorities refuse to give the WHO’s coronavirus origins investigation team raw, personalized data on early COVID-19 cases.

Taiwanese health minister Chen Shih-Chung suggests that China pressured BioNTech, a German pharmaceuticals manufacturer, to call off a deal with the Taiwanese government that would have sent five million coronavirus vaccine doses to the island country. 

Former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his top China policy adviser Miles Yu detail China's "reckless" viral research practices, which they say put the world at risk.

Please note that both Secretary Pompeo and Mr. Yu are fellows at Hudson Institute.