Timeline of China Releasing Information on COVID-19 and Advancing International Cooperation

Construction workers start building the Huoshenshan hospital - a makeshift hospital for novel coronavirus patients in suburban Wuhan, on Jan 28, 2020. Wuhan government announced on Jan 24 that it would build for designated patients a 1,000-bed mobile hospital, named Huoshenshan, with a floor area of 25,000 square meters, before Feb 3. [Photo by Wang Teng/China Daily]

Jan 11

-- The Wuhan Municipal Health Commission updated briefing on the situation of viral pneumonia of unknown cause.

Jan 12

-- The Wuhan Municipal Health Commission changed the name of "viral pneumonia of unknown cause"to "pneumonia caused by the novel coronavirus" for the first time in a briefing.

-- The China CDC, the CAMS and the WIV under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), as designated agencies of the NHC, submitted to the WHO the genome sequence of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), which was published by the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID) and shared globally.

-- The NHC shared with the WHO about information on the genome sequence of the novel coronavirus.

Jan 13

-- The NHC held a meeting to instruct Wuhan authorities to further strengthen social management measures and body temperature monitoring of people at ports and stations, as well as reduce crowd gathering.

-- Delegations from the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions and Taiwan visited Wuhan (until Jan 14.)

-- Wuhan Municipal Health Commission updated the outbreak briefing on its official website, saying Wuhan had reported a total of 41 cases of pneumonia caused by the novel coronavirus as of Jan 12.

-- The WHO issued on its official website a statement on the discovery of the novel coronavirus cases in Thailand, pointing out that China's sharing of the genome sequence enabled more countries to quickly diagnose patients.

Jan 14

-- The NHC held a national teleconference, making arrangements for Hubei Province and Wuhan City to strengthen epidemic prevention and control, while ordering the whole country to prepare for epidemic prevention and response.

Jan 15

-- The NHC unveiled the first version of guidelines on diagnosis and treatment for pneumonia caused by novel coronavirus, along with the guidelines on prevention and control measures.

Jan 16

-- After the optimization of Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) diagnostic reagents was complete, Wuhan City took proactive measures to screen all patients treated in fever clinics or under medical observation in 69 secondary or above hospitals.

-- Foreign journalists asked about the epidemic for the first time at a press conference held by the Chinese foreign ministry in Beijing. Foreign ministry spokesperson said that China has timely informed the WHO and other international organizations of the outbreak and kept close communication with them.

Jan 17

-- The NHC sent seven inspection teams to different provincial-level regions to instruct local epidemic prevention and control work.

Jan 18

-- The NHC organized and sent a high-level expert team, headed by Zhong Nanshan, to Wuhan City to carry out on-site investigation into the prevention and control work (until Jan 19).

-- The NHC released the second version of guidelines on the diagnosis and treatment for the pneumonia caused by the novel coronavirus.

Jan 19

-- The NHC distributed nucleic acid testing reagents to health departments across the country.

-- The China CDC communicated with the US CDC on epidemic prevention and control.

-- Wuhan Municipal Health Commission updated the outbreak briefing on its official website, saying as of Jan 17, Wuhan had reported a total of 62 confirmed cases, including 19 cases discharged after recovery, eight cases with severe symptoms, and two deaths.

Jan 20

-- Xinhua News Agency reported that Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of CPC Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, has made important instructions on the outbreak of pneumonia caused by the novel coronavirus in Wuhan City and other places in Hubei Province, stressing the Party committees and governments at all levels must put people's safety and health as the top priority, make thorough plans, take effective measures to curb the spread of the virus, timely release information and deepen international cooperation.

--Xinhua News Agency reported that Premier Li Keqiang chaired an executive meeting of the State Council to make further arrangements on the prevention and control work of the pneumonia outbreak caused by the novel coronavirus.

-- A teleconference of the joint prevention and control mechanism of the State Council was held in Beijing, at which Vice Premier Sun Chunlan stressed local authorities must take their responsibilities, strengthen the prevention and control measures, secure people's health, and maintain normal production and everyday life order.

-- Wuhan Municipal Health Commission updated the outbreak briefing on its official website: as of 10 pm on Jan. 19, Wuhan reported a total of 198 cases of pneumonia caused by the novel coronavirus, with 25 cured and discharged cases, three deaths.

-- The NHC held a press conference for the high-level expert team headed by Zhong Nanshan, who on the team's behalf confirmed human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus and called on people not to go to Wuhan except for extremely important reasons.

-- The NHC released a statement to classify the novel coronavirus pneumonia as a category B infectious disease under the law on prevention and control of infectious diseases, but take preventive and control measures of category A infectious diseases; the novel coronavirus pneumonia was put under quarantinable infectious disease management according to the Frontier Health and Quarantine Law.

-- The NHC published the second version of guidelines on the prevention and control of the novel coronavirus pneumonia.

-- Researchers from City University of Hong Kong published a genetic analysis on the bioRxiv preprint platform, suggesting what animals that serve as the transmission vehicle of the 2019-nCoV remains to be identified.