Panorama 2020 E28
Category
🦄
CreativityTranscript
00:00Tonight, we investigate how China covered up the scale of its coronavirus crisis.
00:08Why didn't they tell the rest of the world earlier what was happening and how dangerous it was?
00:13The doctors and scientists prevented from telling the truth.
00:18Instead of listening to its own people, it has silenced them and we are all paying the price.
00:24We hear from those who've investigated the outbreak.
00:30I know how efficient the virus was spreading.
00:33It can go with people by flights from one city to thousands of miles away.
00:39And a government that insists it was open and transparent throughout.
00:44There's no cover-up at all.
00:47With warnings this crisis may yet get worse, we ask can China be trusted if it happens again?
00:55This may just be a dress rehearsal.
00:57We need to be ready for what could potentially be even a worse pandemic.
01:09Chinese health authorities are still working to identify the virus behind a pneumonia outbreak in the central city of Wuhan.
01:17Seven months on, the human cost of the coronavirus pandemic is still rising.
01:23Worldwide, 600,000 dead, nearly 16 million infected.
01:28The global economy in meltdown.
01:30So how did we get here?
01:34This is an anti-terrorism door.
01:36It's designed to reduce drilling for several hours and is also technically explosion-proof.
01:43Dr Stephen Baker works with some of the world's most dangerous viruses.
01:47He spent 12 years in Southeast Asia studying how they jump from animals to humans.
01:53Early theories about how this coronavirus made the leap include a leak from a lab,
02:00a scientist doing fieldwork, a hunter infected in the wild.
02:07This virus appeared to be circulating in animal populations, quite possibly bats,
02:13with another mammalian intermediate, pangolins, has been mooted.
02:17At the start of the outbreak, China blamed a market in Wuhan illegally selling exotic animals.
02:26Potentially what happened is that there was a transmission event within the local market
02:31which then went on to cause the epidemic and then went on to cause the pandemic.
02:37Last December, market traders started turning up at local hospitals
02:42with a mystery pneumonia that didn't respond to treatment.
02:47On the 27th, lab results from a patient sample revealed a coronavirus,
02:53closely resembling the virus that caused China's last health crisis.
02:57I joined as a disease detective, and so I chased down epidemics all over the world.
03:05Dr Ali Khan spent much of his career at the US Centers for Disease Control.
03:11Ebola, Rift Valley fever, Congo Crime Syndrome,
03:15and now I'm working at the World Health Organization.
03:18Dr Ali Khan spent much of his career at the US Centers for Disease Control.
03:24Ebola, Rift Valley fever, Congo Crime Syndrome,
03:27hemorrhagic fever, monkeypox, SARS.
03:33In late 2002, the SARS virus jumped from bats to civic cats in a food market in southern China,
03:41ultimately killing nearly 800 people worldwide.
03:49Chinese officials hid cases, censored doctors,
03:53and withheld information from the world for four months.
03:57Dr Khan was sent to the region to help.
04:02Clearly, there was a lack of transparency.
04:05Without a doubt, if they had shared that they had this atypical pneumonia
04:11and allowed international investigation,
04:14there probably would have been fewer cases and likely fewer deaths.
04:19The World Health Organization
04:23After SARS, the World Health Organization strengthened early warning rules.
04:28Suspected epidemics must now be reported within 24 hours.
04:33On the 1st of January this year, the WHO asked China about the mystery pneumonia in Wuhan.
04:41China confirmed it two days later
04:44and took a further six days to reveal that it was dealing with a novel coronavirus.
04:53I've been surprised by how even the Chinese Communist Party has been so secretive about it,
04:59given the experience of SARS.
05:01And there will have been, frankly, thousands of people who will have lost their lives or lost their livelihoods
05:07because China didn't behave as it had promised it would behave
05:11in the international health regulations much earlier.
05:15Wuhan, China
05:21Yet more serious than delaying reporting of the initial outbreak,
05:25China then hid evidence that the virus could be spread by people.
05:31They said there was no reason to suspect the virus was transmitted through humans
05:36and no medical personnel have been infected.
05:41Doctors on the front line didn't agree.
05:43They tried to alert each other.
05:46A post from Li Wenliang at Wuhan Central Hospital went viral,
05:50warning of a disease he thought was SARS.
05:54Within hours, Dr Li was summoned to a meeting by his hospital
05:58and ordered not to discuss the outbreak.
06:05The clinicians knew that the cluster was not limited to people only from the seafood market.
06:12So that was proof positive at that point that there was person-to-person transmission.
06:21China's doctors were trying to get ahead of the virus, but they were silenced.
06:27Dr Li and others forced to sign police confessions that they were spreading misinformation.
06:35Police have warned that fabricating rumours and spreading them are against the law
06:40and will not be tolerated.
06:46Professor Li Lanzhuan was a key advisor to the Chinese government in the early stages of the outbreak.
06:54At the end of December, Wuhan told doctors they weren't allowed to discuss the virus on social media.
07:02Was that a mistake?
07:03To announce its contagiousness, if it's not yet confirmed, would cause public panic.
07:09Therefore, we must be responsible to the public and ascertain the facts first.
07:14Only after that could we release the information to the public.
07:18I don't think people outside understand this.
07:26In China, public order is a priority.
07:29Fear of unrest often drives officials to withhold information, play down risks and delay action.
07:37You know, in any country, when you have something, the virus, which is dangerous to people's health,
07:43when something unknown, always there might be a panic.
07:47You can't say this has come up, since on the official channel, you know, we report through the normal channel,
07:55but on this, we need to make sure that there should be no panic.
08:01It's a very fragile state, and I don't think people quite realise
08:06how fragile the Communist Party regime fears itself to be.
08:12Public panic is only one step removed from public protest and public disorder.
08:25On 12 January, in the city of Shenzhen,
08:28a family was diagnosed with the new coronavirus by eminent doctor, Huo Qiongyuan.
08:34Only some of them had been to Wuhan.
08:38Professor Yuan was one of the scientists who identified SARS 17 years ago.
08:44He knew family clusters signalled human transmission,
08:48and that a pandemic was now a real danger.
08:52I have the experience of diagnosing cases in Shenzhen,
08:56and I know how efficient the virus was spreading,
08:59and I know that it is acquired from hospital,
09:02and I know that it can go with people by flights from one city to thousands of miles away.
09:09But China didn't tell its public, or the rest of the world, for another critical week.
09:16Thailand has reported the first case of the Wuhan coronavirus found outside of China.
09:21Once there is a case abroad, then the whole propaganda has to deal with that.
09:26It's going to come out.
09:27If it's going to start spreading abroad, then the game changes.
09:33China's government has announced that it is going to launch a new COVID-19 vaccine.
09:39If it's going to start spreading abroad, then the game changes.
09:49On 14 January, Beijing convened an urgent teleconference.
09:54According to a leaked memo, reported months later by the Associated Press,
10:00health bosses nationwide were warned that human-to-human transmission was possible.
10:05The crisis was likely to become a major public health event,
10:10and China must prepare for a pandemic.
10:14But on state TV, top health officials played down the risk.
10:26We now know that on 14 January,
10:29the head of the National Health Commission was very pessimistic,
10:32but it was not shared with the Chinese public, and it was not shared with the world.
10:37Why not?
10:39Such a mistake did not occur.
10:42It was during this conference when all provinces learned of this disease.
10:47Before that, it was not widely known.
10:50Once everyone knew about it, all hospitals and disease control bodies sprang into action.
10:56There were never any secrets about it.
11:03The new rules put in place after SARS say that all relevant information
11:09must be provided to the World Health Organization.
11:13China was clearly worried, but the WHO was left to tweet Beijing's official line.
11:20Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission.
11:26Were you, as many have said, effectively a propaganda arm
11:30for the message that China wanted to get out into the world?
11:34I do not believe that the World Health Organization was part of a cover-up
11:39or did not do its work to actually get information
11:42and give this to other member states to keep their population safe.
11:46And I think we were very transparent to publicize the information that we had,
11:51and we did this repeatedly.
11:56CHINESE SONG PLAYS
12:01It was now mid-January, and China was gearing up
12:05for its biggest annual festival, Chinese New Year.
12:09It's worth billions to the economy.
12:12In Wuhan alone, five million people were about to leave town
12:17to see friends and family.
12:19The government didn't stop them.
12:26They need to tell the people of Wuhan.
12:29But they don't.
12:34They allow people to travel to and fro
12:37to what they already know is the scene of a spreading epidemic.
12:40But at that stage, the line is still the same.
12:43We're under control. There are very few more cases.
12:49Now this is the equivalent of maybe our Christmas period,
12:54and it's the largest human movement seasonally we see on the planet,
12:59around three billion passenger trips made.
13:04Professor Andrew Tatum has been studying mobile phone data
13:08from the Wuhan area.
13:10So each one of these orange dots is a movement out of Wuhan
13:15to another part of China,
13:17and the size of the dots relate to the number of people.
13:21And those green dots are people coming from other areas into Wuhan.
13:26And we can see as we're up to 12th, 13th of January,
13:30far more outflows than there are inflows.
13:33And as we get to now 15th of January,
13:36we're starting to see these numbers increase
13:39as people travel out from Wuhan for the Chinese New Year.
13:44But people weren't just travelling in China.
13:49The virus was growing exponentially,
13:52and this globally connected city was now a giant incubator,
13:57its residents unwittingly spreading the virus worldwide.
14:05It's a major transport hub.
14:07It's the biggest centre for universities,
14:10and students that are famously mobile as well.
14:13So there's a lot of factors here that came into play
14:16that brought almost like a perfect storm together.
14:23Until the 18th of January,
14:26China admitted to only 45 cases in the whole country.
14:31But the true number in Wuhan alone was closer to 4,000.
14:38According to British researchers,
14:40this pandemic could no longer be hidden.
14:43A team of high-profile Chinese scientists was sent to Wuhan.
14:47Their evidence would give Beijing the cover
14:50to finally tell the truth about human-to-human transmission.
14:58The SARS expert Professor Yuan,
15:00who diagnosed the Shenzhen cluster, was on the team.
15:04The team quizzed Wuhan officials about the market
15:07where Beijing said the virus had first jumped to humans.
15:26The market had been closed nearly three weeks earlier
15:29and completely disinfected.
15:31Samples had been taken, but not from all the animals.
15:35The team worried that if the virus had jumped to humans here,
15:40crucial evidence was now lost.
16:02The team leader later said local officials
16:05had been unwilling to tell the truth
16:07about the number of infections.
16:09If they'd done their work better,
16:11human-to-human transmission could have been understood sooner.
16:15Professor Yuan agrees the problem was in Wuhan, not Beijing.
16:32In doing some cover-up locally at Wuhan,
16:35the local officials,
16:37who are supposed to immediately relay the information,
16:40has not allowed this to be done as rapidly as it should.
16:44People lie because they're terrified of losing their jobs
16:48or, worse, going to prison.
16:51People lie because they're terrified
16:53that the punishments for failure are so severe.
16:56And governments lie because they have to create a myth
16:59in order to maintain credibility with their people.
17:07After the inspection, on 20 January,
17:10the head of the team announced publicly
17:13what others had been warning of for three weeks.
17:23Despite this public admission, Beijing was still slow to act.
17:27And travel continued.
17:32And things really start to increase.
17:34We're now at the 20th of January,
17:36so coming towards Chinese New Year,
17:3821st of January and 22nd of January,
17:41and then, obviously, the next day, the 23rd,
17:44is when the lockdowns were put in place.
17:46Suddenly, on the 24th, those numbers decrease massively.
17:58A full nine days after Beijing warned health bosses
18:02of a coming pandemic, it now took drastic action.
18:07On the 23rd of January, the entire city of Wuhan,
18:11population 11 million, was quarantined.
18:15Across China, hundreds of millions would soon face travel restrictions.
18:22Beijing says the lockdown bought the world back.
18:25Beijing says the lockdown bought the world time.
18:28But the virus had already gone global.
18:32South Korea has confirmed the first local case of...
18:35..confirmed here in the United States.
18:37Singapore has confirmed its first...
18:39Japan has confirmed its first case of the...
18:41Coronavirus in the UK, the first confirmed case is here.
18:47If those same interventions that were put in place
18:50on the 23rd of January put in place on the 2nd of January,
18:53we have seen a 95% reduction in the numbers of cases.
18:57Locking down Wuhan on the 23rd is bolting the stable door
19:01when the virus is on its way overseas
19:04to become a pandemic across the world.
19:10Professor Li, who'd been on the inspection team,
19:13recommended the lockdown.
19:15She says the Chinese government acted at the right time.
19:23The lockdown was a grave decision.
19:26It was only made when we felt that the epidemic in Wuhan
19:30would threaten the entire country.
19:33So I think the timing was just right.
19:40Zhang Yifan was in Wuhan for a leg operation.
19:44His son Zhang Hai had taken him to hospital there before lockdown,
19:49unaware that he was exposing his father to the dangerous virus.
19:56He was unable to walk.
19:58In that situation, we had no other option.
20:00I made my father wear a face mask and I also put one on.
20:07His father developed a fever and tested positive for coronavirus.
20:15At that time, my dad said to me,
20:17my son, your father doesn't want to die.
20:20He said, please beg the doctors to save my life.
20:24That was what my father said before he lost consciousness.
20:27And it is impossible for me to forget that for the rest of my life.
20:32Across China, the official story celebrated public solidarity
20:36and party leadership.
20:38But a handful of people defied state censorship
20:42to reveal fear, heartache and chaos.
20:45Chen Qiushou was one of them.
20:48He was a member of the Communist Party of China.
20:51He was a member of the Communist Party of China.
20:54He was a member of the Communist Party of China.
20:57He was a member of the Communist Party of China.
21:00Chen Qiushou was one of them.
21:02He uploaded videos to foreign social media platforms banned in China.
21:22Another citizen journalist on the ground in Wuhan
21:26was reporting on the rising numbers of dead.
21:311, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
21:45Soon after, Fang Bin received a visit.
22:01Hey!
22:03The net was also closing on Chen Qiushou.
22:24In early February, the videos stopped.
22:27Both men vanished and have not been heard of since.
22:33It's a very nasty regime and it hates all the things we stand for,
22:38like a free media.
22:40And I commend all those who've been writing about this subject
22:44within China, which has acquired a good deal of bravery on their part.
22:49China says fewer than 5,000 of its citizens died from Covid-19
22:54due to the firm measures it took to detect, contain and treat infections.
23:00But its numbers are impossible to verify.
23:07I don't think anybody thinks that the statistics coming out of China are accurate.
23:11Clearly, politics can't be trusted.
23:14Clearly, politics comes into this and the party wishes to show
23:17that it has done a far better job at containing it than it really has.
23:23One death came to symbolise the national tragedy.
23:28In China, there's been a huge outpouring of grief and anger
23:32at the treatment of a doctor who tried to warn the world
23:35of the dangers of the coronavirus.
23:3834-year-old Dr Li Wenliang,
23:41reprimanded at the start for warning about the risks,
23:45then infected by a patient and dead a month later.
23:51On his deathbed, he became a hero to many inside China and beyond.
23:59It is a tragedy for Dr Li and others.
24:03I respect all these people who have tried their best
24:07to avert a disaster, but unfortunately failed.
24:14Jiang Hai's father also died.
24:17They'd never have gone to Wuhan if local officials had warned of the virus.
24:27To bring him to Wuhan, I sent him to his death.
24:30I regret it in my heart.
24:32Because of their lies, I can't forgive them.
24:37Many people, including my father, passed away.
24:40So to me, they're murderers.
24:42All their actions were criminal behaviour.
24:49On 8 April, China lifted Wuhan's lockdown.
24:53It says its pandemic response prevented 700,000 infections.
25:08As coronavirus continues to disrupt and devastate,
25:13experts say the risk of future pandemics is growing.
25:18In the last 20 years, this is the fourth or fifth large outbreak
25:24of which this particular pandemic is the biggest.
25:27They are becoming more common.
25:30Economic prosperity has meant that people in these places
25:33are more likely to want to eat animal protein
25:36because it's from a more exotic origin.
25:38The pressure that we're putting on animal populations
25:41and the viruses they naturally carry
25:43make it more likely they spill over into humans living in urban centres.
25:49This may just be a dress rehearsal.
25:52We need to be ready for what could potentially be even a worse pandemic.
25:57We can't afford to do this again if we are having,
26:01some country is having an outbreak
26:03and they're deciding to not share that information.
26:06There has to be consequences.
26:10China says it shouldn't be blamed for coronavirus.
26:14It's a victim too.
26:16It's agreed to join an international inquiry into the pandemic,
26:20but only after the crisis is over.
26:24We stand ready to come with the best experts around the world
26:28to work together with our Chinese counterparts
26:30to try to understand where this virus has come from
26:33as a basis to make the world safer as we move forward.
26:39China continues to punish those who challenge the official line.
26:44It now says the virus didn't originate in the Wuhan market
26:48and may not have started in China at all.
26:52It took 14 years to confirm how SARS began
26:57and we still don't have the full story about how that spread.
27:01So what hope of getting to the truth this time?
27:07All along, we have acted with openness, transparency and responsibility.
27:11We have provided information to the WHO and relevant countries
27:15in the most timely fashion.
27:18Well, I think that the Chinese Communist Party
27:21will want to suppress the story for as long as possible
27:24because it doesn't match its image as a regime
27:28which justifies its brutalities by its competence.
27:31Unless the Chinese Communist Party
27:33decides that it wishes to protect its people,
27:36then I'm afraid we're all likely to be victims
27:40of another such incident again.
27:46China says saving lives is its number one priority.
27:51Critics talk tough,
27:53but is that the will to get tough with a rising superpower?
27:58For now, we're left hoping that if this happens again,
28:02China does the right thing of its own accord
28:06and acts faster to better protect us all.
28:13Imagining a life that could have been lived in new drama,
28:17Antony tonight at 8.30 on BBC One.
28:20Powerful and personal accounts of living through war continue
28:23in Once Upon a Time in Iraq at 9 on BBC Two.
28:26More on that to follow.