Three Stages of the COVID-19 Epidemic in China and the Impact In this section, I describe China’s COVID-19 epidemic, the Chinese government’s responses, and the combined impact on the economy, in three chronological stages.

Three Stages of the COVID-19 Epidemic in China and the Impact In this section, I describe China’s COVID-19 epidemic, the Chinese government’s responses, and the combined impact on the economy, in three chronological stages.

Stage One: Awakening to the Epidemic (December 2019 to January 20, 2020)
The Epidemic and Chinese Government’s Actions
A cluster of pneumonia of unknown etiology appeared in Wuhan in December 2019, where
several cases were associated with exposure to a seafood market. Wuhan health officials closed
the market and announced the 27 cases on December 30, 2019, after a few doctors in Wuhan sent
social media messages warning their acquaintances about a “SARS-like” pneumonia. Three
Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Chinese CDC) expert teams were dispatched
to Wuhan for investigation. The first two went to Wuhan on January 1 and January 8,
respectively. They concluded that there was no person-to-person transmission, the epidemic was
under control, and no new cases were reported. Meanwhile, the virus’s genomic data were shared
with GenBank of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Global Initiative on Sharing
All Influenza Data (GISAID) by the Chinese CDC and Fudan University on January 11. Soon
after, these original genetic data helped Japan and Thailand link their new COVID cases to
Wuhan. A third expert team from the central government went to Wuhan on January 19 and
confirmed the person-to-person transmission. On January 20, the Chinese government hosted a
high-level political meeting on COVID-19 management, triggered the national public health
emergency, and added COVID-19 to the national Infectious Disease Information System (IDIS)
that would guarantee mandatory case reporting according to the China’s Health Emergency
Regulations.9 For more discussion about the epidemic and Chinese government’s actions at this
stage, see my previous testimony.10
Impact on the Economy
Even before the lockdown, NASA satellite images showed Wuhan to have lower levels of
pollutants in January 2020 than the same time a year ago, indicating a slowdown in industrial
9 Library of Congress, “China: Legal Responses to Health Emergencies,” webpage, last updated June 9, 2015
(https://www.loc.gov/law/help/health-emergencies/china.php).
10 Jennifer Bouey, “From SARS to 2019-Coronavirus (nCoV): U.S.-China Collaborations on Pandemic Response,”
testimony presented before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and Nonproliferation on
February 5, 2020, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, CT-523, 2020
(https://www.rand.org/pubs/testimonies/CT523.html)