specialists visited China in early January, they would have learned exactly what the world was facing. Certainly, Redfield didn’t know that the virus was already present in California, Oregon, and Washington, and would be spreading in Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Iowa, Connecticut, Michigan, and Rhode Island within the next two weeks-well before America’s first official case was detected.
Perhaps Gao had just been made aware that the virus had been circulating in China at least since November. Lawrence Wright on how the pandemic response went wrong.
