1月20日，韩国出现首例输入性新冠肺炎病例。两天后的1月22日，美国也出现了一例输入性新冠肺炎病例。九天之后，1月31日，特朗普总统宣布美国进入公共卫生紧急状态，并禁止来自中国的旅客入境。相比之下，韩国每天仍然接待多达2万名来自中国的游客，其2月4日颁布的禁令也仅限于湖北省（包括省会武汉市）。两个半月后的4月15日，美国已经录得632546起病例，28326人死亡，而韩国是10591起病例，225人死亡。就在当天，这个国家甚至还举行了国会议员选举，并创下66.2%的28年来最高投票率。韩国绝不是一个另类，台湾、新加坡和香港这些韩国的东亚同胞在新冠疫情应对方面同样出色。从1月21日至1月23日，这些地方都记录了首例新冠肺炎输入病例，但到4月15日为止，它们都成功地将死亡人数控制在了个位数。

美国在预防、遏制和缓解疫情方面的表现与东亚地区大相径庭，这为我们提供了一个有用的背景来质疑特朗普政府的指控，即中国政府有意隐瞒疫情消息，并且应当对美国和世界各地死亡人数的不断上升负责。直到4月17日，《华尔街日报》和《华盛顿邮报》的社论版还在重复这一指控。该指控的重点是，中国早在2019年12月31日就知道有新冠肺炎可以人传人的证据，此外，台湾也向世卫组织通报了相关情况。但中国并没有向美国和国际公共卫生界发出警告，而是将这一重要信息压到1月20日，甚至让试图发出警告的医务人员闭嘴。特朗普政府声称，如果中国提前三周就承认人传人真相，积极遏制并缓解疫情，全球冠状肺炎病例的数量会少95%之多。

这个根据为期三周的时间表做出的指控既不符合事实，也有捏造之嫌，其部分原因，是它所依赖的来源单一，而且后来证明很可疑。

12月31日知道新冠肺炎可以人传人的说法源于《金融时报》的一篇报道，它引用台湾副总统、训练有素的流行病学家陈建仁的话说，台湾曾经就新冠病毒向世卫组织发出警告。然而，事实是从未有过这类警告。台湾卫生福利部长12月31日给世卫组织的的电子邮件称，“中国武汉至少出现7例非典型肺炎病例，这些样品仍在检验中，病患已被隔离治疗”。这其中丝毫没有提及“人传人”。在4月中旬被追问这件事时，台湾卫生福利部长只辩解说，病人被“隔离治疗”应该就是潜在的“人传人”证据。鉴于当时（12月31日）岛上没有确诊病例，台湾是不能声明“人传人”是确定事实的。

抛开台湾的这种掩饰不谈，与当天武汉市卫健委发布的消息相比，它也没有向世卫组织揭露更多有用的信息。12月30日，武汉市卫健委发布了关于一种“不明原因病毒性肺炎”的紧急公告，并在第二天的疫情通报中列出多达27例非典型肺炎病例。同应对任何呼吸道病原体一样，人们一直都知道人际传染风险是不能被忽视的。

更重要的是，当时中国的中央和省级政府已经在集中全力寻找疫情源头，展开调查，并对病毒进行隔离。鉴定病原体的赛跑从1月2日开始，到1月5日，中国已经告知世卫组织此次疫情的构成与流感、禽流感、中东呼吸综合征等其他呼吸道病原体是不同的，这使世卫组织得以第一次向全球通报武汉暴发了不明肺炎。1月7日，首个新毒株被分离出来。1月9日，该病原体被判定为新型冠状病毒。1月12日，它的全部基因序列信息被提交给了世卫组织。1月15日，中国国家卫健委制定了初步的公共卫生对策细则。在当时，追问人与人之间的传播率并非第一要务，这是可以理解的。

这期间，透明度方面也没有欠缺。继12月30日武汉市卫健委发布“不明原因病毒性肺炎”通报后，1月3日，世卫组织和港澳台地区也收到有关这场形成中疫情的通报。美国疾控中心在第二天就得到消息（从它1月6日发布最高级别旅行警示来判断)，并在1月9日向世卫组织转告了病原体鉴定的初步进展。此外，习近平主席1月7日主持召开了关于疫情控制的政治局常委会议，中国还于1月8日和1月中旬与美国疾控部门进行了更多接触。

显然，华盛顿官场指责北京酿成重大过失，在1月份最关键三周的大部分时间里隐瞒重要的新冠肺炎信息，直接导致目前全球病例激增，这是非常不准确的。中国东亚邻国的低死亡率让事情被掩盖了。这种指控还回顾性地假定人们在出现病症的前期就可以获得有关新冠肺炎高感染率、长潜伏期和传染高峰的完整信息。就算北京和世卫组织能在1月上半月确认人际传播的事实，但如果没有早期协调一致的预防、遏制和接触者追踪策略，全球的新冠肺炎病例数量仍然会和今天一样庞大。事实上，在“战争迷雾”般的三周大部分时间里，北京方面迅速、有力且充分透明地做出了回应。

只有1月15日至1月20日（当天习近平主席首次就这场危机发表公开讲话）的那段时间，中方或会因为淡化国内疫情的严重性而受到指责。确实应该更早让公众提高警觉，而不必引起恐慌。应该对人口流动实行更严格的控制，哪怕代价是中断农历假日出行计划。武汉市政府也不应该允许1月18日还举行让人匪夷所思的“百人宴”。但即便如此，还是需要有十分跳跃的逻辑，才会相信有那么一大批已经受感染的武汉居民在极短时间内获得签证，登上飞机前往国外和美国（美国已于1月17日开始对来自武汉的入境旅客进行筛查）。值得一提的是，1月17日和18日，习近平主席也正在国外（对缅甸进行国事访问），这也许让那段时间的应对变得迟钝了。但无论如何，大量证据都已表明，当时这种新型冠状病毒已经跨出中国边境，可能早在1月初就已找到它的人类传播媒介。此外，中国在1月23日之后采取的严厉封锁措施在很大程度上遏制了病毒后来在全球范围内更广泛地传播，从而弥补了之前的一些失误。

中国正在背负着沉重的新冠病毒十字架前行。短短20年时间里，在这片土地上第二次发生了全球性公共卫生突发事件，它夺走人们的生命，破坏人们的生计。非法的野生动物交易和缺乏监管的菜市场必须取缔，某些中国人吃野生动物的习惯必须实质性改变。如果要扭转“一带一路”是病毒传播入口的名声，饱受蹂躏的“一带一路”国家，如伊朗和意大利，必须得到财政支持。作为非洲主要的主权债权国，中国有义务安排重大的债务重组和彻底免除债务。被似是而非的指控和掩盖事实、不透明、进行政治交易的臆测分散注意力决非当前要务，更不用说与之纠缠了。

The first imported case of COVID-19 was recorded in South Korea on January 20th and in the U.S. two days later on January 22nd. Nine days later, on January 31st, President Trump declared a domestic public health emergency and suspended the entry of travelers arriving from China. South Korea, by contrast, continued to receive as many as 20,000 visitors daily from China, limiting its ban to Hubei province (including its capital, Wuhan) on February 4th. Two and a half months later, on April 15th, the U.S. recorded 632,546 cases and 28,326 deaths. South Korea, by contrast, had recorded 10,591 cases and 225 deaths. On that date, the nation even conducted its National Assembly elections, recording a 28-year high voter turnout of 66.2 percent. South Korea is by no means an outlier; it has been bested in its COVID-19 response by its East Asian compatriots, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Each recorded its first imported case of COVID-19 between January 21st and January 23rd, yet each had managed to limit its death count to the single digits as of April 15th.

The vastly contrasting performances of U.S. and East Asia of prevention, containment, and mitigation provide an instructive context to interrogate the Trump administration's accusation that the Chinese government deliberately suppressed information on the breakout of COVID-19, and that its secrecy is to blame for the mounting casualties in America and across the globe. The charge has been repeated on the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, as recently as April 17th in the latter case. The crux of the accusation is that China knew – and the World Health Organization (WHO) was kept informed separately by the Taiwanese – that there was evidence of human-to-human transmission of COVID-19 as early as December 31st, 2019. Yet, rather than alert the U.S. and international public health community, China suppressed this vital piece of information until January 20th and even silenced the medical professionals who tried to raise the alarm. The Trump administration claims that had China acknowledged the truth of human-to-human transmission and moved aggressively on virus containment and mitigation three weeks earlier, the number of global coronavirus cases would have been reduced by as much as 95 percent.

This three-week timetable-based accusation is both factually incorrect and materially bogus, in part because of its reliance on a solitary – and as it turns out, dubious – source.

The origin of the December 31st revelation of COVID-19's human-to-human transmission is a Financial Times story that quoted Taiwanese Vice President Chen Chien-jen, an epidemiologist by training, as saying that Taiwan had alerted the WHO of the virus. No such alert was in fact provided. What Taiwan's Ministry of Health and Welfare did email the WHO on December 31st was that “at least seven atypical pneumonia cases [had been] reported in Wuhan, China … [and while] the samples [were] still under examination, [the] cases ha[d] been isolated for treatment.” There was no mention whatsoever in the message of “human-to-human transmission”. Pressed on this point in mid-April, Taiwan's Health and Welfare Minister could only justify that patients being “isolated for treatment” should have been construed as evidence of potential human-to-human transmission. Given that there were no confirmed cases on the island at the time (December 31st), Taiwan could not state that human-to-human transmission was a definitive fact.

The Taiwanese dissembling aside, the revelation to the WHO contained no more useful information other than what the Wuhan City Health Committee had itself put out that very same day. On December 30th, the Committee issued an urgent public notice about a viral “pneumonia of unknown etiology”, and in its epidemic briefing the subsequent day, it listed as many as 27 atypical cases of pneumonia. As with any respiratory pathogen, it was always understood that the risk of person-to-person spread could not be discounted.

More to the point, Chinese central and provincial authorities were laser-focused at the time on getting to the bottom of the outbreak and investigating and isolating the virus. The race to identify the pathogen kicked off on January 2nd. By January 5th, China was able to report to the WHO that the outbreak differed in structure from other respiratory pathogens such as influenza, avian flu, MERS, etc., enabling the latter to report globally for the first time that cases of an unknown pneumonia had broken out in Wuhan. On January 7th, the first new virus strain was isolated; by January 9th, the pathogen was judged to be a new coronavirus; on January 12th, its full genetic sequence information was deposited with the WHO; and on January 15th, a detailed protocol of initial public health countermeasures was instituted by China's National Health Commission. Interrogating human-to-human transmission rates was (understandably) a less immediate priority at that time.

Throughout this period, there was no deficiency either on the transparency front. Following the Wuhan City Health Committee's viral “pneumonia of unknown etiology” notice of December 30th, the WHO as well as Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan were informed of the brewing epidemic on January 3rd. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) was kept in the loop the next day (judging by the CDC issuing of its highest-level travel notice on January 6th), and preliminary progress on pathogen identification was relayed to the WHO on January 9th. For added measure, the President Xi Jinping presided over an epidemic control-related Politburo Standing Committee meeting on January 7th, and further outreach to American disease control counterparts was initiated on January 8th and again in mid-January.

Clearly, the Beltway accusation that Beijing was materially negligent by suppressing vital COVID-19-related information during the better part of this critical three-week period in January – and, as a direct consequence of which, there is now an explosion of global cases – is grossly inaccurate. The low fatality count in China's East Asian neighborhood belies it. The accusation also retrospectively presumes that perfect information could be available at that early hour on COVID-19's aggressive infection rate, long incubation period, and peak contagiousness at the pre-symptomatic stage. Even if Beijing and the WHO had been able to confirm the fact of human-to-human transmission during the first half of January, without an early and concerted prevention, containment, and contact tracing strategy in place, the global COVID-19 case-load would have been just as large today. For the better part of that 3-week 'fog of war', Beijing did, in fact, marshal a prompt, robust, and adequately transparent response.

It is only for the period between January 15th and January 20th (when President Xi publicly addressed the crisis for the first time) that the Chinese side could be faulted for domestically downplaying the gravity of the outbreak. An elevated public alert could have indeed been put out much earlier, without necessarily engendering panic. Stronger controls on population movement should have been instituted, even at the expense of interrupting lunar holiday travel plans. And Wuhan city authorities should never have allowed the unconscionable public potluck supper of January 18th to take place. But even here, it requires a herculean leap of logic to believe that droves of infected Wuhan residents obtained entry visas in a flash and boarded airplanes to foreign and U.S. destinations (which had started screening Wuhan-originating arrivals on January 17th). For what it is worth, President Xi Jinping, too, was outside the country (on a state visit to Myanmar) on January 17th and 18th, stultifying the response perhaps during this period. The weight of evidence in any case points towards the novel coronavirus already coursing its way across China's borders by that time, having probably found its human transmission medium in early January. Furthermore, China's draconian post-January 23rd lockdown measures did much to stanch the wider global spread of the virus thereafter and compensate for some of its earlier failings.

China has a heavy COVID-19 cross to bear going forward. For the second time in the short space of 20 years, a global public health emergency that has ravaged lives and livelihoods has originated on its soil. The illicit trade in wildlife and underregulated wet markets must be quashed, and the wild animal-eating habits of certain Chinese diners must be socially changed. Devastated Belt and Road Initiative countries, such as Iran and Italy, must be financially supported if the Initiative is to deflect the reputation as a gateway through which viruses travel. And as a large sovereign creditor in Africa, China bears an obligation to provide significant debt restructuring as well as outright relief. Getting distracted by – let alone embroiled in – specious accusations and theories of cover-ups, non-transparency, and political dealing should not be a priority at this moment.