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This is how the news should sound. Twenty minutes a day, five days a week, hosted by Michael Barbaro and Sabrina Tavernise and powered by New York Times journalism.

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Firework fiesta, Elche, Spain

You're unlikely to have heard of Elche, in Valencia province, unless you saw a recent tabloid story linking Diego Maradona with the manager's job of the Spanish city's Segunda División football team. Perhaps only someone of Maradona's stature could put this workaday southern city on the map. Because Elche sits outside the gaudy glare of the Costa Blanca's overheated beach resorts, just far enough inland to preserve its modesty. And it's all the better for it. We were visiting friends and happy to be led on a tour of discovery. We were even happier that there were more hidden treasures than we anticipated: the Palmeral, a world heritage site of 200,000 palm trees; Altamira Castle, a 12th-century Moorish castle; the neoclassical Basílica de Santa María, home of the Elche mystery play, which was declared a masterpiece of oral and intangible heritage by Unesco; and a massive firework display to kick-start the summer festival season.

At a local restaurant we were encouraged to try fideuà, a dish similar to paella, but made with thin pasta instead of rice; and arroz a banda, rice cooked in salty fish stock and topped with a dollop of aioli. A bottle of Marina Alta white wine from nearby Alicante was cheap and delicious. But it's not alcohol that you crave in the dog days of summer, when even a stroll at midnight is enough to reduce you to a puddle. So we dived into an ice-cream shop on Placa de la Glorieta, where our friends ordered us long glasses of horchata de chufa. And fart óns! The sweet milky horchata - made from tiger nuts - has been cooling people from the Valencia region for centuries. The fartóns were billowy soft finger buns dusted with icing sugar, perfect for dunking. I haven't been happier sipping a milky drink at midnight for many years.
Andy Pietrasik

Gelat o heaven, Italian Alps

Some people may regard it as mildly eccentric to drive 20 minutes out of your way in the midwinter snow for an ice-cream. I am very much not one of those people - and fortunately, the Italians aren't either - so having heard that Aosta valley mountain guides were big fans of the Gelateria Pilier in Morgex, I decided a detour was in order en route from La Thuile to Courmayeur. Turns out those guides are good for more than just looking cool on skis, because I'm still thinking about the resulting ice-cream six months later. Made using milk from the sheep grazing on their winter pastures across the road, it combined the distinctive clean lightness of ewe's milk with the rich, fruity flavours of the region - raspberries, sour cherries, roasted hazelnuts - and came topped with a generous avalanche of hot chocolate sauce. It was winter, after all.
piliercentral.com
Felicity Cloake, Guardian food and drink writer

Something of the night, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

There's a lot to love about Cluj-Napoca, Romania's second-largest city. It's the unofficial capital of Transylvania, and blends the historic - a striking central square with gothic St Michael's Church, old town hall, baroque Bánffy Palace (now the national art museum) - with a bohemian, lively vibe thanks to the big student presence (they make up a third of the population). My visit coincided with Cluj Day in September, a cultural celebration with medieval parades, outdoor art exhibitions, concerts and a party atmosphere. Cluj is known on the electronic music scene for the Electric Castle and Untold festivals and has great nightlife year round, with venues like the Gazette Club in a warehouse on top of a hill and the vast Form Space in town, and there are plentiful cool cafes and bars (try the steampunk pub Enigma). It's got a huge vintage and outlet shopping offering and a vibrant art scene too - the Paintbrush Factory in a converted factory is a huge independent cultural space and worth a visit. It made a great value, alternative city break.
Jane Dunford

Beer capital, Leuven, Belgium

One of the best places in Belgium to escape the summer heatwaves is under a canopy in in Leuven, 16 miles east of Brussels. This cobbled square is in fact a rectangle of towering Flemish gothic architecture, but on warm afternoons it feels like one long terrace bar, with students lounging on outdoor sofas, lazily sipping Hoegaardens. The traditional Café Belge is a good place to test out Leuven's reputation as Belgium's beer capital, while more sophisticated spots include Bardot and Café 't Vertier, which has the comfiest outdoor seats for people watching. Leuven is small and still off Belgium's main tourist circuit, so even at the weekend it's surprisingly peaceful - but the city's history, architecture and bar and restaurant scenes rival those of Ghent and Bruges.
Rachel Hall

Love at first bite, Aberdeen

Coming off the overnight ferry from Orkney, I dropped in at the Bonobo Cafe for breakfast and promptly fell in love. Aberdeen's first workers' cooperative vegan cafe opened in its current central location in 2017, after a couple of years as a pop-up. I headed upstairs to the bijou dining area - lots of exposed wood, reclaimed materials and a warm, friendly vibe - and was soon tucking into a generous, tasty and very reasonably priced cooked breakfast: vegan sausages, tomato, tofu "scrambled eggs", baked beans, tattie scones and more. As it was sunny, I had a cheeky post-prandial hot chocolate and CBD oil in the roof garden, where I made friends with Mickey, a handsome white-and-ginger tom who has adopted the cafe and is now a permanent fixture. It's not the first time I wished I were a cat.
bonobotribe.co.uk
Dixe Wills

Wild woods, East Sussex

This summer we spent three days in a Sussex field - and it was one of the most successful family holidays we've ever had. The sun shone; my son and his friend (both nine) disappeared for hours on end, and I had time to read. Wowo is known for its family-friendliness, offering bushcraft, circus and storytelling sessions, and the boys enjoyed these, but the thing they loved most was the freedom to play in the woods on rope swings and makeshift bridges. There were times when I worried I was giving them too much freedom - like the time my son came back and told me he'd been dangling upside down over a ditch - but the benefits of being able to roam wild far outweighed the risks. To my astonishment, the boys completely forgot about electronic devices and instead got into whittling. They had zero interest in day trips, so we stayed on site, adjusting to the rhythm of outdoor life - waking early, cooking breakfast outside, exploring the woods that border each field. I'd expected to be eager to leave; instead I was reluctant to rejoin the real world and would happily have stayed for the rest of the summer.
From £10 a night adult, £5 child; sessions such as bushcraft and circus skills from £12;
Isabel Choat

Splendid isolation, Lincolnshire

Much of Lincolnshire's wild coastline is unspoilt by development, with vast sandy stretches, dunes and wildlife-rich, marshy hinterlands. The only sign of human presence from the beach at Gibraltar Point was a wind farm, far out in the misty sea, and the boardwalk leading back to the nature reserve. When I visited in August, we paddled in the warm shallows, skimmed stones, walked barefoot across the mudflats and explored several miles of pathways around salt marshes and freshwater meres. Nearby, there's the new North Sea Observatory at Chapel Point; fab fish and chips at Waldo's in Sutton-on-Sea; and Anderby Creek, a sandy beach with a small cafe and "cloud bar" - which claims to be the world's first dedicated cloud observation platform.
Antonia Wilson

Strawberry Field ... forever, Liverpool

For a Beatles nut, the opening ceremony of Strawberry Field in September was a magical moment. The grounds of the former Salvation Army children's home that inspired the Beatles' 1967 classic had never before been open to the public (as a boy, John Lennon would bunk over the wall to play in the gardens) and were the last major unknown piece of the Beatles jigsaw. Where the gothic Victorian house once stood, the Salvation Army has built a light-filled cafe and exhibition space to help fund its Steps to Work programme, which is on the same site and helps young people with learning disabilities get into employment. The exhibition covers Lennon's early life and the making of Strawberry Fields (Lennon added the "s"), with a virtual Mellotron that teaches visitors to play the song's famous opening notes. But the real joy was sitting in the peaceful now-landscaped garden (free to enter) imagining which of the trees my hero would have climbed ("No one I think is in my tree") while his psychedelic masterpiece played in my head.
Cafe and garden free to enter, interactive exhibition £12.95 adult, £8 child (5-16), strawberryfieldliverpool.com
Gavin McOwan

Antiquity-on-sea, Paestum, Salerno, Italy

Craving a long empty sandy shore after cheek-by-jowl experiences on tiny Amalfi beaches, I spotted Paestum on a map, to the south of Salerno. A modicum of research produced tantalising images of ancient Greek temples and the remains of a Roman town behind the dunes - history and swimming, an ideal holiday combination. As it happened, cafes on the delightful little square over the road from the temples took more of our time than we had envisaged, as did the fascinating museum, with its Greek and Lucanian tomb art, made famous by the stunning Diver painting. We also managed to photobomb the most stylish wedding I've ever witnessed, just outside the venerable Paleochristian Basilica of Our Lady of the Annunciation. A 10-minute walk through dunes took us to a huge beach curving away south to Cilento. Easily big enough to dodge the sunloungers and roped-off private areas, this was an idyllic place to wander and swim. But there's more history to ponder: this was also the site of the US 36th Division's fraught Salerno landings in 1943. Just how did those stunning temples survive?
Adam McCulloch

Pots of delight, Beirut

One of the first neighbourhoods in East Beirut to become trendy, Gemmayzeh is now full of bars, restaurants and clubs. Most memorable, though, was not the (excellent) cocktails but drinking coffee with inspiring potters Nicole Bersuder and Imad Baalbaki at their workshop-cum-gallery on the top floor of an old building on the main drag, Gouraud Street. Nicole learned her craft in Sweden and Greece, and she and partner Imad have been perfecting it here for 25 years, producing dishes, plates, vases and more in tactile, sinuous shapes, with finishes varying from matt to shiny, richly opaque to transparent. "I have a carnal relationship with clay," she says. Imad's work is more playful - expressive animal shapes in figurines or adorning a plate. He was working on a series featuring spiky-haired refugee boy Handala, commemorating his creator, Palestinian cartoonist Naji Salim Hussain, murdered in London in 1987. The pair hold an open house fortnight each September, but visitors are welcome any time at their atelier (between Café Ginette and Phil & Joe Barbers - no street number). They'll have the coffee pot on.
Liz Boulter

Take the bus to a waterfall walk, Bellingham, Northumberland

Exploring rural Northumberland by bus places great emphasis on timing, as the service can stretch your understanding of the word "frequency". Rather than viewing the two-hour gaps between the 680 Tynedale Links buses as a negative, I took the positives: an opportunity to plan properly. Arriving in Bellingham (on the Pennine Way) on a Saturday afternoon, I had two hours - or four. Details like these focus the mind. A sausage bap and coffee at the town's Carriages Tea Rooms (two repurposed 1957 Mark 1 railway carriages) turned out to be not my only "discovery". With 80 minutes to play with, I took the three-mile circular walk to Hareshaw Linn waterfall. This site of special scientific interest is home to rare ferns and more than 300 types of mosses, liverworts and lichen. On a late autumn day, walking the gorge - alongside Hareshaw Burn, crossing numerous wooden bridges on the way - was a beautifully tranquil, nature-filled experience.
Robert Hull

It was ferry heaven, Greek island hopping

I spent a few weeks in the summer on an island-hopping odyssey around the Greek islands, among them some superb craggy outcrops like Amorgos, Sifnos and Ikaria. And yet in some ways the star performer of the trip was the Greek ferry system. From the first voyage out of Piraeus, it served up a reliable mixture of fresh air, cheese pies, good coffee and spectacular panoramas. Every island had its attractions, but I always looked forward to that moment in the port, waiting in a little taverna, when the boat came steaming into harbour and I'd jump aboard. Even the occasional need to change boats for particular destinations made for interesting discoveries: the antiquities of Kos, for example, and the charm of Naxos's old town.
Booking info at ferries.gr
Kevin Rushby

Heart of glass, Perugia

Many visitors to Italy find themselves gazing at amazing stained glass, but not so many get to see how these masterpieces of light and chemistry are created. On a steep street in central Perugia, five generations of one family have been working in glass since 1858, when Francesco Moretti, whose work can be seen throughout Italy and across the world, founded the studio. His descendants showed us original bottles of coloured enamel powder, kilns where different colours are carefully "cooked" and workshops where new masterpieces are created. Walking into the main studio (pictured) in this 15th-century house is like stepping into a Renaissance painting: lit by a row of windows, its walls and archways are covered in decorative frescos and hung with paintings, musical instruments and even a suit of armour. Also on display are a portrait of Queen Margherita that you would never believe was glass, a version of Da Vinci's last supper, and elegant contemporary pieces.
Open Tues, Weds 10am-3pm, other times by appointment, donations requested, studiomoretticaselli.it
LB

About time, Olsztyn, Poland

I made a long overdue first visit to Poland this year, and found myself really quite taken with Olsztyn, a small city in the north-east of the country on the River Łyna. Accessible by train from the UK - I travelled overnight via Berlin - it's the birthplace of art deco architect Erich Mendelsohn and capital of the Warmia-Masuria province, known as the Land of a Thousand Lakes (though it's actually home to about 3,000). At its heart is a laid-back mix of parks and attractive streets liberally sprinkled with medieval buildings. One of these is the very castle whose walls were used in the 16th century by Nicolaus Copernicus to make the calculations that resulted in the switch from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar. Best of all, 11 of the region's lakes are within the city limits, so visitors are never far from a place to indulge in water sports, a tranquil shoreline wander or a lakeside bar for a crisp, refreshing beer from the city's Kormoran brewery. DW

Highland flung, The Lost valley, Glen Coe

Glen Coe is everything you would imagine of the Scottish Highlands - majestic, forbidding, savagely beautiful - but you don't have to be an experienced hiker with calves of steel to enjoy it. On our visit at Easter we followed the path from a layby on the A82 up across the valley floor, edged along a narrow gorge, clambered over boulders; and after about an hour were above the Lost valley - a hidden spot where the Macdonald clan used to hide their cattle, where wild campers now pitch tents. The walk had enough drama to distract my son, and for us to feel as if we'd had a proper dose of wilderness. Plus in a week when we had almost every type of weather, we were lucky to walk under spring sunshine. IC

Happy hotel, Vienna

I'd never been to Vienna before, and on my first trip, this summer, was won over by the laid-back vibe. My base was the newly opened Max Brown hotel, a converted mansion with 143 rooms in Neubau, the hip 7th district. On the ground floor, Seven North restaurant, run by Israeli chef Eyal Shani, has a theatrical open kitchen serving southern Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cuisine with lots for veggies (Arabian cabbage cake, roast cauliflower or sweet potato "brain" with crème fraîche, from €9). Carnivores can feast on whole roasted fish (€14) or kebab schnitzel (€18). The hotel has a cocktail bar, cinema and pool tables and rooms all have Crosley record players, a basketball net (and ball), bright colour schemes, chic mid-century furniture, potted plants and bathrooms with Desea Spa products. It's a great location for vintage shopping and only a short walk from the museum district and Vienna's old-school coffee houses and lively bars.
Doubles from €113 room-only, maxbrownhotels.com
JD

Lap it up, Husky hike, Finland

The most fun I had all year was taking a dog for a walk. (Maybe I need to get out more?) But this wasn't any old dog walk - it was a husky hike through a forest in Finnish Lapland. Before the snows come and the sleigh rides begin, visitors can help exercise the dogs on foot. Our guide selected a pack of eight out of hundreds of baying hounds, humans and dogs were paired up and put into harness, and we all hurtled off at high speed. After the barking (and screaming) subsided, my dog, Kuiska (Whisper) and I settled into a steady jog through trees. It was ruska, the two-week period in Lapland when the autumn colours are most vivid. The peace was broken only when the huskies scented water and dashed en masse into a ditch, dragging us handlers face-first behind them. If you too want to get wet, dirty and covered in dog hair, you don't have to go to Finland - Eagle Heights Wildlife Foundation in Kent also offers husky hikes.
harriniva.fi
Rachel Dixon

Wild about wildlife, UK nature reserves

Thanks to David Attenborough's television programmes, some of the British public are probably more familiar with the Serengeti and Antarctica than places like Kenfig and Skipwith Common, but there is environmental treasure right under our noses here in the UK.

My moment of awakening came at , a national nature reserve near Bridgend, south Wales, when my guide suddenly jumped up from where he was showing me a sward covered in orchids and ran off, shouting, "Get your camera. Quick!" He had spotted a shrill carder bee, a creature rarer than a Bengal tiger. There are over 2,500 nature reserves in Britain, some managed by government bodies, some by Wildlife Trusts and some privately. There are more than 30 run by Butterfly Conservation. Many were formerly known by the catchy moniker "sites of special scientific interest". They may not have prides of lions, but they can be just as dramatic.

Take in mid-Wales, where the salmon spend November chucking themselves headlong up waterfalls right past the viewing platform that only occasionally hosts a visitor. Or near York, where grass snakes snooze on the warm bricks of first world war bunkers, with not a single minivan of camera-toting tourists in sight. These places are disgracefully under-resourced by government, often reliant on volunteers, and there will be a gem near you. Give it some love.
wildlifetrusts.org, visitengland.com, nnr.scot, first-nature.com/waleswildlife, discovernorthernireland.com
KR

Your carriage awaits, boat train to Sicily

On 14 December, one of Europe's three surviving train ferries set sail for the last time. The Hamburg to Copenhagen train will now be rerouted via Odense. It is the latest in a long list of lost boat trains from the golden age of rail, including the overnight London-Paris ferry. The two remaining services are the summer-only Berlin Night Express to Malmö, and the year-round train ferry from mainland Italy to Sicily. In May, my partner and I took the train from Naples to the toe of Italy, where the train is loaded on to the ferry to cross the Straits of Messina (the boat has tracks and the train is driven right on). Once on the ferry, we watched from the deck as Sicily neared. After half an hour, we were back on board and speeding down the island's east coast to Taormina, Catania and Syracuse. With spectacular coastal scenery, the excitement of the sea crossing and our picnic of arancini and wine, it was one of the most enjoyable journeys I've ever taken. Next time, I might extend it by starting in Rome, Milan or even London, and go all the way to Palermo. After all, if we don't support these venerable boat trains, there will soon be none left.
RD

Kreuzberg street art tour, Berlin

I love Berlin's imposing, sometimes daunting, architecture and history, but for me an even bigger draw is its embrace of cultural diversity. It still feels open to artistic expression and lo-fi creativity, amid all the European capital oomph. In the company of Elisabetta, a With Locals guide, I took an afternoon walking tour around the Kreuzberg district's street art. What impressed me about her insight was how, as we strolled past the East Side Gallery and across the Oberbaumbrücke, she shone a light on smaller artworks and lesser-known artists, not just Insta hits. So, as well as eyecatching pieces by Os Gêmeos and Nomad, she pointed out Korkmännchen (little cork yoga figures added to road signs), the cigarette packet-style art of Taosuz, and emotional stencils by ALIAS, about children left alone in the city. The tour also takes in RAW Gelände, a complex of wildly graffitied derelict buildings that is now a cultural space (including the Haubentaucher lido).
Tour €26.50pp, 2½ hours, withlocals.com
RH

Bastide in blue,Lectoure, France

Lectoure is a bastide - it's even got a hotel called the Bastard. A bastide is a fortified town, and this one sits high above the fertile plains of the Gers river in rural south-west France. Its houses and shops are built of limestone and radiate a warm honey glow in summer, their shutters painted a distinctive pastel shade known as Lectoure blue, made using local woad. The main street is closed off every Friday for the farmer's market, which sells local produce like armagnac (it used to be the capital of the earldom of Armagnac), prunes and, whisper it, foie gras. At the other end, there's a rambling antiques market in the former 17th-century hospital, and a small thermal spa.

But the jewel of the town is tucked out of sight behind the monumental cathedral in the gardens of the former bishop's palace. Sitting on a terrace overlooking the Gers countryside is the most beautiful outdoor swimming pool. It's a 25-metre lido with a separate children's section, surrounded by a Technicolor green lawn. It's like a scene from a French movie: sun glinting on the water, women of a certain age swimming, head up in sunglasses, middle-aged men doing laps, couples cuddling in the shallow end. And it's all presided over by a sun-wizened lifeguard who prowls the perimeter in a white vest and the briefest of trunks. Best of all it costs less than €5 for the whole day.
AP

Pasta glory, Lisbon

I'd only been in Lisbon a couple of days, but the beetroot pasta at Osteria Cucina Di Amici had already been name-dropped by both the manager of my co-working space and my surf instructor. The corner restaurant's pea-green walls are decorated with vintage Italian posters and a photo of the pope lit up with coloured fairy-lights, under mismatched chairs at Formica tables dressed with red gingham napkins. An enamel bowl of silky, pink bucatini pasta (pictured) topped with parmesan and basil leaves, was perfectly in tune with the surrounding Italian kitsch. Also on the menu is Sardinian bread lasagne, and meatballs with creamy mash. The restaurant is in the hilly Madragoa neighbourhood of narrow cobbled streets and washing lines strung between crumbly tiled walls. For the more typical Portuguese cuisine, I headed down to local favourite Último Porto, where the seafood is barbecued on the dockside between shipping containers.
AW
Looking for a holiday with a difference? Browse Guardian Holidays to see a range of fantastic trips

This article was amended on 24 December 2019. An earlier version misnamed the Straits of Messina as the Straits of Medina. This has been corrected.

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The best travel discoveries of 2019, chosen by Guardian writers

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Island-hopping, nightlife, nature reserves, city breaks and walks, plus top places to eat and stay. We share our favourite finds of the past 12 months

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The Coronavirus Crisis debugid:204

Back to The Daily

transcript

A Virus's Journey Across China

Hosted by Michael Barbaro; produced by Neena Pathak, Annie Brown and Eric Krupke; with help from Kelly Prime; and edited by M.J. Davis Lin and Mike Benoist

Government officials thought they could control the disease and cover up its growing death toll. They were wrong.

michael barbaro

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is "The Daily."

[music]

Today: China says it has made lifesaving reforms since the last time it was the source of a public health crisis 17 years ago. So why is the deadly coronavirus spreading so rapidly across the country? My colleague, Javier Hernández, reports from the center of the outbreak.

It's Thursday, January 30.

Javier, how did you first hear about this outbreak?

javier hernández

Well, we started hearing reports in early January that there was this mysterious virus that was affecting Wuhan, which is a city in central China.

javier hernández

People were falling ill to this kind of pneumonia-like virus, which scientists were calling a coronavirus.

javier hernández

It's a very frightening virus that spreads from animals to humans. It was believed to be behind some very serious respiratory illnesses, so it sounded pretty scary. But the official narrative was that this strain couldn't pass from human to human. It would only go from animals to humans.

javier hernández

And at that point, they were saying that it was all originating at a single meat market in central China. This meat market sold wild animals, things like bamboo rats, badgers, wolves even. And the assumption was that people had come into contact with these animals and picked up this virus.

michael barbaro

And it sounds like because it was one meat market, and because this virus could only pass from animals to humans, that this is a pretty small problem.

javier hernández

At this point, the reports were that only about 130 people had been infected and that, of those, only about four had died.

javier hernández

And so the prognosis was that the outbreak was controllable, that it was treatable and that things would be O.K.

michael barbaro

And Javier, what are you thinking when you hear the Chinese government talking this way, saying that everything is going to be O.K.?

javier hernández

We were a bit skeptical. We knew that the Chinese government had a history of downplaying outbreaks like this. And as we saw more and more reports in the international media of this virus spreading, we began to question whether the officials were being totally upfront about what was happening.

michael barbaro

And what do you mean when you say a history of downplaying situations like this?

javier hernández

Well before this virus, there was the outbreak of SARS 17 years ago. And it turned into this global health crisis that infected more than 8,000 people. It killed more than 800 people. And a big part of the reason that it spread so violently was because the Chinese government didn't tell the world. And there was this period of months and months when it was spreading very rapidly in China, and the world just didn't know about it. And for a lot of Chinese today, that experience with SARS makes them very skeptical of anything that the government says when it comes to public health.

michael barbaro

And I imagine a reporter like you would be similarly skeptical.

javier hernández

Right. We really wanted to make sure that we got this one right.

We wanted to double check that this was, in fact, a small scale outbreak as the government was portraying it. And we wanted to talk to people who were getting sick with this virus to get a sense of what it was like for them - how severe it was, whether they were getting the care they needed.

michael barbaro

And so what do you do?

javier hernández

So I live in Beijing. So I rushed to our bureau here and grabbed masks, enough to last me a couple days, and then headed to the airport and boarded a flight to Wuhan. And I just remember everyone on board, almost everyone, was wearing a mask. I was just struck by that. You never see people wear masks on this scale. And so it felt like there was this sense of anxiety already in the air even before we landed.

[music]

Once I got there, I rushed off to meet an ambulance doctor who had been posting on social media about this outbreak. And we had contacted him because he was challenging the official narrative about what was happening. He was saying he didn't believe the official numbers. He thought that this could be another SARS-like outbreak.

michael barbaro

And what was happening to his posts once they went online?

javier hernández

They lasted for a while, and then they would be taken down, just disappeared. It was clear that the government was cleaning and trying to scrub the internet of any critical questions about official data. And so we wanted to talk to him about what he was seeing on the ground.

michael barbaro

And what did he tell you?

javier hernández

He told me that he felt like people weren't taking enough precautions, that the government wasn't being urgent enough. And he worked in a hospital and had a lot of interaction with doctors and other medical workers. So he felt like his job could be at stake if he were to come forward publicly.

michael barbaro

So the numbers the Chinese government is providing are relatively small. This ambulance doctor you're meeting with is saying the problem is bigger. So what do you do to try to reconcile those two pieces of information?

javier hernández

We wanted to find the people whose relatives had fallen ill to this virus. And so we were looking online for people who were reporting symptoms of fever, cough, basically anything that was associated with this kind of virus. And we stumbled on a guy from Shanghai. He was a 40-year-old architect, and he told me that his stepmother had died just a couple of days earlier from a mysterious pneumonia-like illness. And so I found him, sent him a message, and we agreed to meet at a cafe. [CHATTER]

michael barbaro

And what is the story of what happened to his stepmom?

javier hernández

He tells me that she was a very healthy, normal 65-year-old woman who, a couple of weeks earlier, had started to feel like she was having a flu. So she had some coughing. She had kind of a sore throat, but it didn't seem like anything that bad. But it suddenly began to worsen. She was having a fever. She needed a respirator to breathe. And all very suddenly she was sent to a contagious disease ward, and the family was told that she would likely die.

michael barbaro

And what did she or her stepson understand about what was behind her illness?

javier hernández

They didn't really understand much. For days and days, according to Mr. Wei, the family had tried to get her tested for this coronavirus, this mysterious virus that was spreading across Wuhan. And the doctors and other medical workers refused.

He pulled out his phone and showed me her death certificate, and all it said was that she died of severe pneumonia.

michael barbaro

But why wouldn't they test her, and what does it tell you that they wouldn't test her?

javier hernández

It became clear to me in that moment that there seemed to be something going on here. Were these hospitals just not prepared? Did they not have enough testing kits? Were they running out of tests? Had they tested so many people that they didn't have any tests left? Were they just not counting people anymore because they weren't even diagnosing them? And if she wasn't diagnosed with this illness, then maybe she wasn't even included in the official count. And one other thing really stuck with me from my interview with Mr. Wei. And that was that the hospital, according to him, told them that his mother's body had to be burned immediately, had to be cremated immediately. [CHATTER]

michael barbaro

And what does that tell you? What does that mean to you that they're burning these bodies?

javier hernández

It began to put in my head the sense that the hospital workers were beginning to think that this illness was contagious. And the fact that they wanted that body burned immediately began to suggest that perhaps they thought it posed a threat to other people.

Her death got us thinking about whether there were other people like her. And when you went online and search social media, you could quickly find others who were reporting similar experiences - people saying that they went to hospitals, they brought their sick relatives and were simply turned away. We began to kind of add things up, and it seemed like the numbers weren't right.

michael barbaro

So at this point, it sounds like your skepticism is growing, and it's sounding pretty warranted. So what do you do next?

javier hernández

So I head back to my hotel and start to try to make sense of all of this. And as I'm sitting there in my room, I begin to see these reports emerging on social media -

javier hernández

- that one of China's top health experts has acknowledged that this virus is now spreading from person to person, which had never been the case before.

archived recording (zhong nanshan)

[SPEAKING CHINESE]

archived recording (translator)

We considered risks of this before, but now evidence has confirmed that it is contagious among humans.

javier hernández

And he's an 83-year-old guy that they dug out of retirement essentially. He was a renowned expert during the SARS crisis. And suddenly, he's all over social media, telling people that this crisis is much worse than had been previously known.

michael barbaro

So this doctor is very much validating what you have been hearing.

javier hernández

Yes. He's saying that there was even a case where one patient was able to infect 14 medical workers.

michael barbaro

Wow.

javier hernández

And I begin to see the panic kind of spread across social media.

archived recording 1

Say I have coronavirus. Could I give it to you right now?

archived recording 2

It's possible, if you're coughing and sneezing. If you have a fever, it can be transmitted.

archived recording 3

But the spread of Corona virus is accelerating.

javier hernández

This is the moment when the world begins to wake up.

archived recording 1

Meanwhile, new cases are being confirmed outside of China as well.

archived recording 2

Thailand has reported the first case of the Wuhan coronavirus found outside of China.

archived recording 3

- because now they're talking Thailand, Singapore, possibly Scotland. The U.K. is bracing for it to go in there. We have airports here in the United States very concerned about it -

archived recording 4

That are doing surveillance.

archived recording 5

- here in New York, Chicago and L.A. Every day it seems growing exponentially.

archived recording 6

It is. It's growing.

javier hernández

The numbers after that point just keep spiraling and spiraling.

archived recording 1

The number of people who have died -

archived recording 2

The death toll climbing once again overnight.

archived recording 3

The death toll from a deadly viral outbreak of the new coronavirus -

archived recording 4

26 deaths so far from the -

archived recording 5

- has now passed 40.

archived recording 6

[SPEAKING CHINESE]

archived recording 7

It's not just Chinese people who are worried. Everyone is worried. They're all afraid of dying.

javier hernández

You just hear people wondering whether the virus is ever going to be contained.

michael barbaro

We'll be right back.

And Javier, what are you thinking and feeling at this moment? Because you're in this city. You're interacting with people who are taking care of those who are sickened and infected by this illness.

javier hernández

Yeah.

michael barbaro

Are you anxious?

javier hernández

Well I'm beginning to feel like this is much worse than I thought. And I think a sense of paranoia can easily settle in sometimes in these situations. I had masks. I was washing my hands all the time. But I couldn't help but think about every button in the elevator that I touched, every surface and every cough or sniffle that I saw around me. The virus could be anywhere, so I had to be careful.

michael barbaro

I mean, understandably.

javier hernández

So I finished up my reporting, and I grabbed a flight back to Beijing.

javier hernández

And then the very next day, I hear -

javier hernández

The Chinese government has placed this entire city under lockdown.

michael barbaro

Wow.

michael barbaro

So the city you have just left has basically told everybody else who remains that they're not going anywhere.

javier hernández

Right. This city is being closed off in a way that China has never done before - or even any other major modern city, really, hasn't done it in recent times.

javier hernández

And it was quickly becoming clear to the government that this wasn't just a local problem.

javier hernández

They quickly expanded it to not just Wuhan, but to other cities, so that there were tens of millions of people who were essentially forced to stay at home and not allowed to go out. They've just put in place the biggest lockdown that we've ever seen and what experts are saying is the biggest experiment in public health that they've ever seen.

archived recording 1

Despite their efforts, authorities say the virus has not been stopped.

archived recording 2

Much depends on whether the measures set in place by the Chinese government will prove effective.

michael barbaro

It's hard to imagine most any other country being able to mount that kind of a response. I mean, I'm just trying to fathom an American city somehow being locked down.

javier hernández

So this is what it looks like when China's authoritarian system is in full force. There's no choice for people to leave. Many people are stuck there. They are going to hospitals that are overcrowded, but they can't get the health care they need. Doctors are complaining about a lack of medical supplies and critical items like masks and goggles. And you get the sense that people are kind of stuck with what they have, and that's the bargain they've made by living in this system. They have no choice but to follow the government's orders. They can't push back. They can't swim against the current here. Everyone's essentially forced to comply with this mass lockdown.

michael barbaro

You know, from everything we've learned about China and its authoritarian government, it seems like it controls every aspect of its citizens' lives and it surveils every aspect of citizens' lives. And you've just walked us through how they were able to essentially suddenly drop a wall around Wuhan. So knowing all that, shouldn't China's government have been able to identify and control this outbreak before it got out of hand?

javier hernández

You would think that, because the government is so well known for being able to pull off these massive displays of citizen mobilization - it's been known to be able to pull off these technological feats. But at the same time, there's a flip side of this coin, which is that China's authoritarian culture, in many ways, set the stage for this crisis.

michael barbaro

What do you mean?

javier hernández

Well for decades, China has built this system, this ruthless system in which if you are an official in the Communist Party, you are expected to be almost perfect. If anything goes bad, you are the one who is going to take responsibility. You are the one who is going to fall. And this has created an incentive system where local officials fear saying anything about bad news. They worry that if they are found to have done something wrong, that they will lose their power. So in a situation like this, the incentive is to cover up. It's to conceal. It's to delay. It's to try to get a handle on these problems on your own, hoping that perhaps nobody will ever hear about it.

michael barbaro

So by the time something like, say, a medical crisis gets really big, it may be too late for the local officials who have been trying to contain it themselves and keep it from Beijing.

javier hernández

Exactly. These kinds of dynamics played a huge role in the scale of the SARS outbreak. It was clear in this case that local officials knew exactly what was going on. They knew that people were dying of this illness. But for months and months, they didn't want to report it up the chain. Instead, they tried to cover it up. They tried to see if they could perhaps deal with it secretly, and maybe nobody would ever find out about it. They hoped that Beijing would know about it. But eventually it broke.

michael barbaro

So did China learn from that experience with SARS, that dynamic that led to that breakdown, that cover-up?

javier hernández

China said it would make a lot of changes to its system after the SARS crisis. It said that it would expand its disease reporting system so that these kinds of reports from the local provinces would come to the central government in a more timely fashion. They promised to be more transparent in the release of data and other things. But what they didn't change was this authoritarian culture, where people fear bringing bad news. And so that has actually gotten worse under President Xi.

michael barbaro

Why?

javier hernández

He has made himself out to be the most powerful leader since Mao. He is somebody who's always speaking about this great ascendant moment for China in which China is going to be this superpower. And anything that goes against Xi's vision of this harmonious, resurgent China is going to be seen as a problem. And the people who are creating that problem will pay the consequences. And when I was there in Wuhan, I could sense the fear just rippling across all parts of the society. There were people like the ambulance doctor, who was afraid of challenging the official statistics. There were hospitals that seemed to be paralyzed, that didn't want to test patients for fear of knowing the results. They didn't want to be seen as speaking out or telling the truth or bringing this unsavory story into public view.

michael barbaro

So that had trickled down all the way to the frontline health care workers, who are supposed to be treating this and sounding the alarm.

javier hernández

Right. They're fearful of being seen as responsible for this crisis. They don't want to stand out. And when you think about where this virus might be headed next - to other provinces, to other cities - you have to wonder if these same dynamics would be playing out again. If people will stay silent, if they will not report official cases, because they fear for their jobs and they fear for their livelihoods.

michael barbaro

So it seems like whatever reforms the Chinese government made after the failures of SARS, that in the end, none of them really matter, because it hasn't changed the problem that's at the root of this.

javier hernández

At the root of all this is a sense of fear that is both the Communist Party's strength, but it's also a huge weakness. They can mobilize entire cities to be on lockdown. They can convince people to stay indoors. They can scrub social media of information that counters their narrative. That's all very effective when you're trying to get the public behind your policies. But at the end of the day, the fear is also a huge vulnerability. It creates this system where people are unwilling to speak out, unwilling to bring problems that are really important and that affect people's lives.

michael barbaro

Right. I mean, for the Chinese leadership, that works until it doesn't, right? Until you very much need for people to stop being afraid and to speak out about something like a public health crisis.

javier hernández

Exactly.

And so when you look at the culture, you wonder whether China can actually contain these viruses, whether we will continue to live in a world where the internal politics of the party are going to put lives around the world in danger.

michael barbaro

Javier, thank you.

javier hernández

Thanks, Michael.

michael barbaro

On Wednesday, the total number of people infected by the coronavirus in mainland China surpassed those infected with the SARS virus during that epidemic. As of Wednesday evening, the virus had infected more than 6,000 people in mainland China. Later today, the World Health Organization will convene its emergency committee to determine whether the outbreak amounts to a public health emergency of international concern, its most severe classification.

We'll be right back.

Here's what else you need to know today. The Times reports that the White House has sent former national security adviser, John Bolton, a letter, warning him not to publish a book in which he recounts speaking to President Trump about the quid pro quo with Ukraine at the heart of the impeachment trial. In the letter, the White House claims that the book contains significant amounts of classified information that could harm U.S. national security. The letter was sent before The Times published a story describing the book's contents, a story that has further fueled calls for Bolton to testify in the Senate trial. Senators are expected to vote on whether to call witnesses like Bolton later today.

[music]

That's it for "The Daily." I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.

Government officials thought they could control the disease and cover up its growing death toll. They were wrong.

Hosted by Michael Barbaro; produced by Neena Pathak, Annie Brown and Eric Krupke; with help from Kelly Prime; and edited by M.J. Davis Lin and Mike Benoist

Back to The Daily

transcript

A Virus's Journey Across China

Hosted by Michael Barbaro; produced by Neena Pathak, Annie Brown and Eric Krupke; with help from Kelly Prime; and edited by M.J. Davis Lin and Mike Benoist

Government officials thought they could control the disease and cover up its growing death toll. They were wrong.

michael barbaro

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is "The Daily."

[music]

Today: China says it has made lifesaving reforms since the last time it was the source of a public health crisis 17 years ago. So why is the deadly coronavirus spreading so rapidly across the country? My colleague, Javier Hernández, reports from the center of the outbreak.

It's Thursday, January 30.

Javier, how did you first hear about this outbreak?

javier hernández

Well, we started hearing reports in early January that there was this mysterious virus that was affecting Wuhan, which is a city in central China.

javier hernández

People were falling ill to this kind of pneumonia-like virus, which scientists were calling a coronavirus.

javier hernández

It's a very frightening virus that spreads from animals to humans. It was believed to be behind some very serious respiratory illnesses, so it sounded pretty scary. But the official narrative was that this strain couldn't pass from human to human. It would only go from animals to humans.

javier hernández

And at that point, they were saying that it was all originating at a single meat market in central China. This meat market sold wild animals, things like bamboo rats, badgers, wolves even. And the assumption was that people had come into contact with these animals and picked up this virus.

michael barbaro

And it sounds like because it was one meat market, and because this virus could only pass from animals to humans, that this is a pretty small problem.

javier hernández

At this point, the reports were that only about 130 people had been infected and that, of those, only about four had died.

javier hernández

And so the prognosis was that the outbreak was controllable, that it was treatable and that things would be O.K.

michael barbaro

And Javier, what are you thinking when you hear the Chinese government talking this way, saying that everything is going to be O.K.?

javier hernández

We were a bit skeptical. We knew that the Chinese government had a history of downplaying outbreaks like this. And as we saw more and more reports in the international media of this virus spreading, we began to question whether the officials were being totally upfront about what was happening.

michael barbaro

And what do you mean when you say a history of downplaying situations like this?

javier hernández

Well before this virus, there was the outbreak of SARS 17 years ago. And it turned into this global health crisis that infected more than 8,000 people. It killed more than 800 people. And a big part of the reason that it spread so violently was because the Chinese government didn't tell the world. And there was this period of months and months when it was spreading very rapidly in China, and the world just didn't know about it. And for a lot of Chinese today, that experience with SARS makes them very skeptical of anything that the government says when it comes to public health.

michael barbaro

And I imagine a reporter like you would be similarly skeptical.

javier hernández

Right. We really wanted to make sure that we got this one right.

We wanted to double check that this was, in fact, a small scale outbreak as the government was portraying it. And we wanted to talk to people who were getting sick with this virus to get a sense of what it was like for them - how severe it was, whether they were getting the care they needed.

michael barbaro

And so what do you do?

javier hernández

So I live in Beijing. So I rushed to our bureau here and grabbed masks, enough to last me a couple days, and then headed to the airport and boarded a flight to Wuhan. And I just remember everyone on board, almost everyone, was wearing a mask. I was just struck by that. You never see people wear masks on this scale. And so it felt like there was this sense of anxiety already in the air even before we landed.

[music]

Once I got there, I rushed off to meet an ambulance doctor who had been posting on social media about this outbreak. And we had contacted him because he was challenging the official narrative about what was happening. He was saying he didn't believe the official numbers. He thought that this could be another SARS-like outbreak.

michael barbaro

And what was happening to his posts once they went online?

javier hernández

They lasted for a while, and then they would be taken down, just disappeared. It was clear that the government was cleaning and trying to scrub the internet of any critical questions about official data. And so we wanted to talk to him about what he was seeing on the ground.

michael barbaro

And what did he tell you?

javier hernández

He told me that he felt like people weren't taking enough precautions, that the government wasn't being urgent enough. And he worked in a hospital and had a lot of interaction with doctors and other medical workers. So he felt like his job could be at stake if he were to come forward publicly.

michael barbaro

So the numbers the Chinese government is providing are relatively small. This ambulance doctor you're meeting with is saying the problem is bigger. So what do you do to try to reconcile those two pieces of information?

javier hernández

We wanted to find the people whose relatives had fallen ill to this virus. And so we were looking online for people who were reporting symptoms of fever, cough, basically anything that was associated with this kind of virus. And we stumbled on a guy from Shanghai. He was a 40-year-old architect, and he told me that his stepmother had died just a couple of days earlier from a mysterious pneumonia-like illness. And so I found him, sent him a message, and we agreed to meet at a cafe. [CHATTER]

michael barbaro

And what is the story of what happened to his stepmom?

javier hernández

He tells me that she was a very healthy, normal 65-year-old woman who, a couple of weeks earlier, had started to feel like she was having a flu. So she had some coughing. She had kind of a sore throat, but it didn't seem like anything that bad. But it suddenly began to worsen. She was having a fever. She needed a respirator to breathe. And all very suddenly she was sent to a contagious disease ward, and the family was told that she would likely die.

michael barbaro

And what did she or her stepson understand about what was behind her illness?

javier hernández

They didn't really understand much. For days and days, according to Mr. Wei, the family had tried to get her tested for this coronavirus, this mysterious virus that was spreading across Wuhan. And the doctors and other medical workers refused.

He pulled out his phone and showed me her death certificate, and all it said was that she died of severe pneumonia.

michael barbaro

But why wouldn't they test her, and what does it tell you that they wouldn't test her?

javier hernández

It became clear to me in that moment that there seemed to be something going on here. Were these hospitals just not prepared? Did they not have enough testing kits? Were they running out of tests? Had they tested so many people that they didn't have any tests left? Were they just not counting people anymore because they weren't even diagnosing them? And if she wasn't diagnosed with this illness, then maybe she wasn't even included in the official count. And one other thing really stuck with me from my interview with Mr. Wei. And that was that the hospital, according to him, told them that his mother's body had to be burned immediately, had to be cremated immediately. [CHATTER]

michael barbaro

And what does that tell you? What does that mean to you that they're burning these bodies?

javier hernández

It began to put in my head the sense that the hospital workers were beginning to think that this illness was contagious. And the fact that they wanted that body burned immediately began to suggest that perhaps they thought it posed a threat to other people.

Her death got us thinking about whether there were other people like her. And when you went online and search social media, you could quickly find others who were reporting similar experiences - people saying that they went to hospitals, they brought their sick relatives and were simply turned away. We began to kind of add things up, and it seemed like the numbers weren't right.

michael barbaro

So at this point, it sounds like your skepticism is growing, and it's sounding pretty warranted. So what do you do next?

javier hernández

So I head back to my hotel and start to try to make sense of all of this. And as I'm sitting there in my room, I begin to see these reports emerging on social media -

javier hernández

- that one of China's top health experts has acknowledged that this virus is now spreading from person to person, which had never been the case before.

archived recording (zhong nanshan)

[SPEAKING CHINESE]

archived recording (translator)

We considered risks of this before, but now evidence has confirmed that it is contagious among humans.

javier hernández

And he's an 83-year-old guy that they dug out of retirement essentially. He was a renowned expert during the SARS crisis. And suddenly, he's all over social media, telling people that this crisis is much worse than had been previously known.

michael barbaro

So this doctor is very much validating what you have been hearing.

javier hernández

Yes. He's saying that there was even a case where one patient was able to infect 14 medical workers.

michael barbaro

Wow.

javier hernández

And I begin to see the panic kind of spread across social media.

archived recording 1

Say I have coronavirus. Could I give it to you right now?

archived recording 2

It's possible, if you're coughing and sneezing. If you have a fever, it can be transmitted.

archived recording 3

But the spread of Corona virus is accelerating.

javier hernández

This is the moment when the world begins to wake up.

archived recording 1

Meanwhile, new cases are being confirmed outside of China as well.

archived recording 2

Thailand has reported the first case of the Wuhan coronavirus found outside of China.

archived recording 3

- because now they're talking Thailand, Singapore, possibly Scotland. The U.K. is bracing for it to go in there. We have airports here in the United States very concerned about it -

archived recording 4

That are doing surveillance.

archived recording 5

- here in New York, Chicago and L.A. Every day it seems growing exponentially.

archived recording 6

It is. It's growing.

javier hernández

The numbers after that point just keep spiraling and spiraling.

archived recording 1

The number of people who have died -

archived recording 2

The death toll climbing once again overnight.

archived recording 3

The death toll from a deadly viral outbreak of the new coronavirus -

archived recording 4

26 deaths so far from the -

archived recording 5

- has now passed 40.

archived recording 6

[SPEAKING CHINESE]

archived recording 7

It's not just Chinese people who are worried. Everyone is worried. They're all afraid of dying.

javier hernández

You just hear people wondering whether the virus is ever going to be contained.

michael barbaro

We'll be right back.

And Javier, what are you thinking and feeling at this moment? Because you're in this city. You're interacting with people who are taking care of those who are sickened and infected by this illness.

javier hernández

Yeah.

michael barbaro

Are you anxious?

javier hernández

Well I'm beginning to feel like this is much worse than I thought. And I think a sense of paranoia can easily settle in sometimes in these situations. I had masks. I was washing my hands all the time. But I couldn't help but think about every button in the elevator that I touched, every surface and every cough or sniffle that I saw around me. The virus could be anywhere, so I had to be careful.

michael barbaro

I mean, understandably.

javier hernández

So I finished up my reporting, and I grabbed a flight back to Beijing.

javier hernández

And then the very next day, I hear -

javier hernández

The Chinese government has placed this entire city under lockdown.

michael barbaro

Wow.

michael barbaro

So the city you have just left has basically told everybody else who remains that they're not going anywhere.

javier hernández

Right. This city is being closed off in a way that China has never done before - or even any other major modern city, really, hasn't done it in recent times.

javier hernández

And it was quickly becoming clear to the government that this wasn't just a local problem.

javier hernández

They quickly expanded it to not just Wuhan, but to other cities, so that there were tens of millions of people who were essentially forced to stay at home and not allowed to go out. They've just put in place the biggest lockdown that we've ever seen and what experts are saying is the biggest experiment in public health that they've ever seen.

archived recording 1

Despite their efforts, authorities say the virus has not been stopped.

archived recording 2

Much depends on whether the measures set in place by the Chinese government will prove effective.

michael barbaro

It's hard to imagine most any other country being able to mount that kind of a response. I mean, I'm just trying to fathom an American city somehow being locked down.

javier hernández

So this is what it looks like when China's authoritarian system is in full force. There's no choice for people to leave. Many people are stuck there. They are going to hospitals that are overcrowded, but they can't get the health care they need. Doctors are complaining about a lack of medical supplies and critical items like masks and goggles. And you get the sense that people are kind of stuck with what they have, and that's the bargain they've made by living in this system. They have no choice but to follow the government's orders. They can't push back. They can't swim against the current here. Everyone's essentially forced to comply with this mass lockdown.

michael barbaro

You know, from everything we've learned about China and its authoritarian government, it seems like it controls every aspect of its citizens' lives and it surveils every aspect of citizens' lives. And you've just walked us through how they were able to essentially suddenly drop a wall around Wuhan. So knowing all that, shouldn't China's government have been able to identify and control this outbreak before it got out of hand?

javier hernández

You would think that, because the government is so well known for being able to pull off these massive displays of citizen mobilization - it's been known to be able to pull off these technological feats. But at the same time, there's a flip side of this coin, which is that China's authoritarian culture, in many ways, set the stage for this crisis.

michael barbaro

What do you mean?

javier hernández

Well for decades, China has built this system, this ruthless system in which if you are an official in the Communist Party, you are expected to be almost perfect. If anything goes bad, you are the one who is going to take responsibility. You are the one who is going to fall. And this has created an incentive system where local officials fear saying anything about bad news. They worry that if they are found to have done something wrong, that they will lose their power. So in a situation like this, the incentive is to cover up. It's to conceal. It's to delay. It's to try to get a handle on these problems on your own, hoping that perhaps nobody will ever hear about it.

michael barbaro

So by the time something like, say, a medical crisis gets really big, it may be too late for the local officials who have been trying to contain it themselves and keep it from Beijing.

javier hernández

Exactly. These kinds of dynamics played a huge role in the scale of the SARS outbreak. It was clear in this case that local officials knew exactly what was going on. They knew that people were dying of this illness. But for months and months, they didn't want to report it up the chain. Instead, they tried to cover it up. They tried to see if they could perhaps deal with it secretly, and maybe nobody would ever find out about it. They hoped that Beijing would know about it. But eventually it broke.

michael barbaro

So did China learn from that experience with SARS, that dynamic that led to that breakdown, that cover-up?

javier hernández

China said it would make a lot of changes to its system after the SARS crisis. It said that it would expand its disease reporting system so that these kinds of reports from the local provinces would come to the central government in a more timely fashion. They promised to be more transparent in the release of data and other things. But what they didn't change was this authoritarian culture, where people fear bringing bad news. And so that has actually gotten worse under President Xi.

michael barbaro

Why?

javier hernández

He has made himself out to be the most powerful leader since Mao. He is somebody who's always speaking about this great ascendant moment for China in which China is going to be this superpower. And anything that goes against Xi's vision of this harmonious, resurgent China is going to be seen as a problem. And the people who are creating that problem will pay the consequences. And when I was there in Wuhan, I could sense the fear just rippling across all parts of the society. There were people like the ambulance doctor, who was afraid of challenging the official statistics. There were hospitals that seemed to be paralyzed, that didn't want to test patients for fear of knowing the results. They didn't want to be seen as speaking out or telling the truth or bringing this unsavory story into public view.

michael barbaro

So that had trickled down all the way to the frontline health care workers, who are supposed to be treating this and sounding the alarm.

javier hernández

Right. They're fearful of being seen as responsible for this crisis. They don't want to stand out. And when you think about where this virus might be headed next - to other provinces, to other cities - you have to wonder if these same dynamics would be playing out again. If people will stay silent, if they will not report official cases, because they fear for their jobs and they fear for their livelihoods.

michael barbaro

So it seems like whatever reforms the Chinese government made after the failures of SARS, that in the end, none of them really matter, because it hasn't changed the problem that's at the root of this.

javier hernández

At the root of all this is a sense of fear that is both the Communist Party's strength, but it's also a huge weakness. They can mobilize entire cities to be on lockdown. They can convince people to stay indoors. They can scrub social media of information that counters their narrative. That's all very effective when you're trying to get the public behind your policies. But at the end of the day, the fear is also a huge vulnerability. It creates this system where people are unwilling to speak out, unwilling to bring problems that are really important and that affect people's lives.

michael barbaro

Right. I mean, for the Chinese leadership, that works until it doesn't, right? Until you very much need for people to stop being afraid and to speak out about something like a public health crisis.

javier hernández

Exactly.

And so when you look at the culture, you wonder whether China can actually contain these viruses, whether we will continue to live in a world where the internal politics of the party are going to put lives around the world in danger.

michael barbaro

Javier, thank you.

javier hernández

Thanks, Michael.

michael barbaro

On Wednesday, the total number of people infected by the coronavirus in mainland China surpassed those infected with the SARS virus during that epidemic. As of Wednesday evening, the virus had infected more than 6,000 people in mainland China. Later today, the World Health Organization will convene its emergency committee to determine whether the outbreak amounts to a public health emergency of international concern, its most severe classification.

We'll be right back.

Here's what else you need to know today. The Times reports that the White House has sent former national security adviser, John Bolton, a letter, warning him not to publish a book in which he recounts speaking to President Trump about the quid pro quo with Ukraine at the heart of the impeachment trial. In the letter, the White House claims that the book contains significant amounts of classified information that could harm U.S. national security. The letter was sent before The Times published a story describing the book's contents, a story that has further fueled calls for Bolton to testify in the Senate trial. Senators are expected to vote on whether to call witnesses like Bolton later today.

[music]

That's it for "The Daily." I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.

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Nearly two decades ago, China was at the heart of a public health crisis over a deadly new virus. It said it had made lifesaving reforms since. So why is the Wuhan coronavirus now spreading so rapidly across the world? Our correspondent went to the center of the outbreak to find out.

Image

A man believed to be Hong Kong's first Wuhan coronavirus patient being treated on Wednesday. Credit... Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times

Javier C. Hernández contributed reporting.

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The Coronavirus Crisis debugid:204 Back to The Daily transcript Government officials thought they could control the disease and cover up its growing death toll. They were wrong. michael barbaro From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is "The Daily."