Discovery Based on retrospective analysis published in
The Lancet in late January, the first confirmed patient started experiencing symptoms on 1 December 2019, though the
South China Morning Post later reported that a retrospective analysis showed the first case may have been a 55-year-old patient from Hubei province as early as 17 November. On 27 March 2020, news outlets citing a government document reported a 57-year-old woman, who started having symptoms on 10 December 2019 and subsequently tested positive for
COVID-19 may have been the
index case in the
COVID-19 pandemic. Although the first confirmed patient did not have any exposure to
Huanan Seafood Market, an outbreak of the virus began among the people who had been exposed to the market nine days later. The outbreak went unnoticed until 26 December 2019, when
Zhang Jixian, director of the Department of Respiratory Medicine at Hubei Xinhua Hospital, noticed a cluster of patients with pneumonia of unknown origin, several of whom had connections to the
Huanan Seafood Market. She subsequently alerted the hospital, as well as municipal and provincial health authorities, which issued an alert on 30 December. Results from patient samples obtained on 29–30 December indicated the presence of a novel coronavirus, related to
SARS. On 28 December 2019, Lili Ren, a virologist at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College in Beijing uploaded a partial sequence of the COVID-19 virus's structure to the United States
National Institutes of Health's
GenBank. The NIH did not publish the submission, as it did not include technical information required by the institute's rules, and attempts by the NIH to contact Ren went unanswered. On 17 January 2024,
The Wall Street Journal released a report about the 28 December upload. The
World Health Organization (WHO) issued its first report on the outbreak on 5 January 2020. Professor
Zhang Yongzhen of
Fudan University completed sequencing of the novel virus almost identical to the previous 28 December upload on 5 January. Professor Yongzhen published the results to the online database
GenBank on 11 January.
Measures and impact in Hubei Semi-log graph of 3-day rolling average of new cases and deaths in China during COVID-19 epidemic showing the lockdown on 23 January and partial lifting on 19 March. Within three weeks of the first known cases, the government built sixteen large mobile hospitals in Wuhan and sent 40,000 medical staff to the city. A retrospective study of antibody prevalence estimated that close to 500,000 people in Wuhan may have been infected during the outbreak.
Spreading beyond Hubei . Numbers including Hong Kong and Macau. On 25 January,
Chinese Communist Party general secretary Xi Jinping warned that China was facing a 'grave situation'. He held a
Party Politburo meeting which promised resources and experts for treatment and supplies to Hubei as more and more cases of the viral infection, mostly exported from Wuhan were confirmed in other cities in Hubei On 29 January,
Tibet announced its first confirmed case, a male who traveled from Wuhan to
Lhasa by rail on 22–24 January which marked that the virus spread to all parts of mainland China. Henan, Wuxi, Hefei, Shanghai, Inner Mongolia suspended trade of living poultry on 21 January.
Public Health Emergency declarations By 21 January, government officials warned against hiding the disease. On 22 January, Hubei launched a Class 2 Response to Public Health Emergency. Ahead of the Hubei authorities, a Class 1 Response to Public Health Emergency, the highest response level was announced by the mainland province of
Zhejiang on 23.
Guangdong and
Hunan followed suit later on the day. On the following day, Hubei also launched a Class 1 Response. By 29, all parts of mainland initiated a Class 1 Response after Tibet upgraded its response level on that day.
Social impacts Holidays, tourism and events On 26 January, the
State Council extended the 2020
Spring Festival holiday to 2 February (Sunday, the ninth day of the first lunar month) with 3 February (Monday) marking the start of normal work. The educational institutions postponed the start of school. The different provinces made their own policies about holiday extension.
Miss Universe China 2020 was originally scheduled to take place on 8 March 2020; however, on 21 February 2020, the Miss Universe China Organization announced that the pageant was cancelled and postponed to a later date due to the pandemic. The new date was later announced as 9 December 2020.
Line 3 during the epidemic. On 21 January, the Wuhan Culture and Tourism Bureau postponed a tourism promotion activity to the city's citizens. All qualified citizens will be able to continue the qualification in the Bureau's next activity. On 23 January, the Bureau announced the temporary closing of museums, memorials, public libraries and cultural centers in Wuhan from 23 January to 8 February. All tour groups to and from Wuhan will be canceled. On 23 January, the City Administration of
Dongcheng, Beijing cancelled temple fairs in Longtan and
Temple of Earth, originally scheduled for 25 January. The Beijing Culture and Tourism Bureau later announced cancellations of all major events including temple fairs. The tourist attractions in Beijing and Tianjin, including the
Forbidden City and the National Maritime Museum closed their doors to the public from 24 January. On the evening of 23 January, the
Palace Museum decided to shut down from 25 January and the West Lake in Hangzhou announced shutting all paid attractions and the Music Fountain down and suspended the services of all large-scale cruise ships starting the next day. Since 24 January, many major attractions are shut down nationwide including the
Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum in Nanjing,
Shanghai Disneyland,
Pingyao Ancient City in Shanxi,
Canton Tower in Guangdong, the
Old Town of Lijiang, Yunnan and
Mount Emei in Sichuan.
Sports For the
2020 Olympic women's football qualifier, the third round of the Group B matches for the Asian division was planned to be held in Wuhan and later Nanjing, but the match was finally held in Sydney, Australia. The
2020 Chinese FA Super Cup, to be held in Suzhou on 5 February 2020 was postponed. The
2020 Asian Champions League play-off match between
Shanghai SIPG and
Buriram United were played behind closed doors. The
Chinese Football Association announced that the 2020 season is postponed from 30 January. The Asian Football Confederation postponed all home matches for Chinese clubs in the
Champions League group stage. The three of them had not played a single game yet as of 3 March 2020. The
Olympic boxing qualifier has also been rescheduled to March and the venue has been moved to Amman, Jordan. The Group B of the
Olympic women's basketball qualifiers, originally scheduled to be held in Foshan, Guangdong was also moved to Belgrade, Serbia. As for the other major sports events,
FIS Alpine Ski World Cup, scheduled for 15–16 February 2020 was canceled due to the outbreak. The event was originally planned to be the 2022 Winter Olympics' first test. The 2020 World Athletics Indoor Championships, originally scheduled to take place in Nanjing from 13 to 15 March are
postponed for a year and will be held at the same venue. The Confederations Cup Asia Pacific Group I, scheduled to be held in Dongguan,
Guangdong was moved to
Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan. The State General Administration of Sports announced a suspension of all sporting events until April. The Mudanjiang Sports Culture Winter Camp and China Rally Championship Changbai Mountains are both suspended. After the postponement of national women's basketball games, the
Chinese Volleyball Association suspended all volleyball matches and activities. The
2020 Sanya ePrix, due to take place on 21 March as the third round of the
Formula E season was postponed to a yet to be announced date. On 12 February, the
2020 Chinese Grand Prix, due to take place on 19 April as the fourth round of the
2020 Formula One World Championship was also postponed. The
Lingshui China Masters badminton tournament, scheduled to commence on 25 February to 1 March 2020 was postponed to early May. China's 14th National Winter Games, originally scheduled for 16–26 February were also postponed.
Education On 21 January 2020, the
Ministry of Education (MoE) requested the education system to do a good job in the prevention and control of pneumonia caused by novel coronavirus infection. After that, private education providers including
New Oriental, NewChannel and TAL Education, education departments in Hubei, Zhejiang, Shenzhen, and Shanghai University cancelled all ongoing courses and postponed the new semester. On 27 January, MoE advised all higher education institutions to postpone the new spring semester with all local education departments to determine the starting time of the new semester for K-12 education and local colleges according to the decision of the local governments. The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security also decided to put the new semester off for all vocational education facilities. The
National Education Examinations Authority canceled all
IELTS,
TOEFL and
GRE exams scheduled for February. The decision was first made for tests to be held in Wuhan and extended to those in all parts of mainland China. MoE also urged the Chinese students studying abroad to delay their travels. For those who need to go abroad, MoE advised them to arrive earlier in case of any kind of health check and to stop traveling if they have any signs of coughing and fever. On 28 January, the National Civil Service Bureau said that it would postpone the 2020 civil service recruitment examination, public selection and public selection interview time.
Civil life Civil Affairs authorities in Shanghai, Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Jinan, Ningbo and Gansu announced on 25 January that they would cancel the special arrangement of marriage registration scheduled for 2 February 2020 to avoid the spread of the epidemic and cross-infection caused by the gathering of people. Later, on 30 January, the Ministry of Civil Affairs ordered to cancel marriage registrations on 2 February.
Religion The government of China, which upholds a policy of
state atheism, used the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic to continue its
antireligious campaigns, demolishing Xiangbaishu Church in
Yixing and removing a Christian Cross from the steeple of a church in
Guiyang County.
Politics constructed in
Wuhan in February 2020. The outbreak made an impact on the
National People's Congress (NPC), China's national parliament and many local parliaments. On 27 January, the Provincial People's Congress Standing Committee (PPCSC) of Yunnan announced to postpone local Lianghui sessions scheduled for early February which was followed by the PPCSC of Sichuan on 28 January. The local parliament sessions of cities including
Hohhot,
Chengdu,
Jinan,
Qingdao,
Binzhou,
Zhengzhou,
Pingdingshan,
Anyang,
Hefei,
Changzhou,
Ningbo,
Wenzhou,
Zhoushan,
Ganzhou,
Shangluo, and
Jiangjin were also put off.
The NPC's Standing Committee will discuss on 24 February to decide whether to delay its March session or not. The 10-day session in March is an annual gathering of about 3,000 delegates from all parts of China where the major laws are passed and key economic targets are unveiled. The potential delay will be the first time since 1995 when the NPC first adopted the schedule for the March session. Willy Lam, a political analyst at the
Chinese University of Hong Kong believed that the sessions may not only increase the risk of infections but also "post hostile and embarrassing questions to the top officials about the outbreak." He also believed that canceling the meetings would be possible although this never happened after the
Cultural Revolution.
Economic impact In late January, economists predicted a V-shaped recovery. By March, it was much more uncertain. Millions of workers were stranded far from their jobs while the workplaces were short-handed. The data for February 2020—the first full month after the virus became a major factor in January—saw official indicators of economic activity fall to record lows. The Caixin
manufacturing index (PMI) fell to 35.7 in February from 50 in January, showing a deep contraction. The nation's non-manufacturing index sank even further to a record low of 29.6 in February from 54.1 in January 2020. According to
The Wall Street Journal, "The factory index indicated contraction for most of 2019, hit by a trade war between the United States and China. It didn't cross back into expansion until late [2019] when trade tensions between the two sides eased." China's economic growth is expected to slow by up to 1.1 percentage in the first half of 2020 as economic activity is negatively affected by the new COVID-19 outbreak, according to a Morgan Stanley study cited by Reuters. But, on 1 February 2020, the People's Bank of China said that the impact of the epidemic on China's economy was temporary and the fundamentals of China's long-term positive and high-quality growth remained unchanged. Due to the outbreak, the
Shanghai Stock Exchange and the
Shenzhen Stock Exchange announced that with the approval of the
China Securities Regulatory Commission, the Spring Festival holiday was extended to 2 February and trading will resume on 3 February. Before that, on 23 January, the last trading day of shares before the Spring Festival, all three major stock indexes opened lower, creating a drop of about 3% and the
Shanghai index fell below 3000. On 2 February, the first trading day after the holiday, the three major indexes even set a record low opening of about 8%. By the end of the day, the decline narrowed to about 7%, the Shenzhen index fell below 10,000 points, and a total of 3,177 stocks in the two markets fell. The People's Bank of China and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange announced that the inter-bank RMB foreign exchange market, the foreign-currency-to-market and the foreign-currency market will extend their holiday closed until 2 February 2020. When the market opened on 3 February, the Renminbi declined against major foreign currencies. The central parity rate of the Renminbi against the US dollar opened at 6.9249, a drop of 373 basis points from the previous trading day. It fell below the 7.00 than an hour after the opening, and closed at 7.0257. The sale of new cars in China was affected by the outbreak. There was a 92% reduction on the volume of cars sold during the first two weeks of February 2020. According to the sources of
Automative News, Chinese policymakers had discussed the extension of subsidies for electric-vehicle purchases beyond this year to revive sales, By 13 March, most business outside of Hubei was active again. The Caixin PMI increased to 50 at the end of March. During Q1 2020, China's GDP dropped by 6.8 percent, the first contraction since 1992. In May 2020,
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang announced that, for the first time in history, the
central government wouldn't set an economic growth target for 2020, with the economy having contracted by 6.8% compared to 2019 and China facing an "unpredictable" time. However, the government also stated an intention to create 9 million new urban jobs until the end of 2020. By late 2020, the economic recovery was accelerating amid increasing demand for Chinese manufactured goods. The UK-based
Centre for Economics and Business Research projected that China's "skilful management of the pandemic" would allow the Chinese economy to surpass the United States and become the world's largest economy by nominal GDP in 2028, five years sooner than previously expected. However, a government report cautioned that the recovery was "not yet solid".
Unemployment In January and February 2020, during the height of the epidemic in Wuhan, about 5 million people in China lost their jobs. Many of China's nearly 300 million
rural migrant workers have been stranded at home in inland provinces or trapped in Hubei province. By the end of March, as many as 80 million workers may have been unemployed, according to an estimate by economist Zhang Bin of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; this estimate included migrant workers and people in rural areas, whom the official statistics from Beijing do not take into account.
Face mask shortage and production . In China,
face masks have been used widely by the general public during the pandemic, and have been required in many locations. As the epidemic accelerated, the mainland market saw a shortage of face masks due to the increased need from the public. It was reported that Shanghai customers had to queue for nearly an hour to buy a pack of face masks which was sold out in another half an hour. Some stores are hoarding, driving the prices up and other acts so the market regulator said that it will crack down on such acts. The shortage will not be relieved until late February when most workers return from the New Year vacation according to Lei Limin, an expert in the industry. On 22 January 2020,
Taobao, China's largest e-commerce platform owned by
Alibaba Group said that all face masks on
Taobao and
Tmall would not be allowed to increase in price. The special subsidies would be provided to the retailers. Also, Alibaba Health's "urgent drug delivery" service would not be closed during the Spring Festival.
JD, another leading Chinese e-commerce platform said, "We are actively working to ensure supply and price stability from sources, storage and distribution, platform control and so on" and "while fully ensuring price stability for JD's own commodities, JD.com also exercised strict control over the commodities on JD's platform. Third-party vendors selling face masks are prohibited from raising prices. Once it is confirmed that the prices of third-party vendors have increased abnormally, JD will immediately remove the offending commodities from shelves and deal with the offending vendors accordingly." The other major e-commerce platforms including Sunning.com and
Pinduoduo also promised to keep the prices of health products stable. Figures from China Customs show that some 2.46 billion pieces of epidemic prevention and control materials had been imported between 24 January and 29 February, including 2.02 billion masks and 25.38 million items of protective clothing valued at 8.2 billion yuan ($1 billion). Press reported that the
China Poly Group, together with other Chinese companies and state-owned enterprises, had an important role in scouring markets abroad to procure essential medical supplies and equipment for China.
Risland (formerly Country Garden) sourced 82 tonnes of supplies, which were subsequently airlifted to Wuhan. By March, China has been producing 100 million masks per day to meet the demand of medical staff and general public. == Environment ==