7th June, 2020
By Xinhua/NAN
China informed the public right after health experts determined that the new coronavirus was spreading between humans, a white paper issued by the State Council Information Office said on Sunday.
The white paper “Fighting COVID-19: China in Action” said that on January 18 and 19, the National Health Commission (NHC) assembled a high-level national team of senior medical and disease control experts.
The commission then sent the team to the city of Wuhan to study the local response to the epidemic.
“In the middle of the night of January 19, after careful examination and deliberation, the team determined that the new coronavirus was spreading between humans,” it said.
On January 20, the NHC held a press conference for the high-level expert team, at which it was confirmed that the virus could transmit from human to human, it added.
The U.S. President Donald Trump had accused China of lack of transparency about the virus and about not informing the world on time.