The heroic deeds and people in emergencies are indeed inspiring, but what we need are mechanisms to prevent emergencies from happening.
SARS and COVID-19 Development Timeline
Background Review
On November 16, 2002, the first suspected SARS patient was discovered in Guangdong.
On February 18, 2003, four months after the SARS outbreak, the national CDC mistakenly diagnosed the pathogen as chlamydia, delaying epidemic prevention and control.
On April 16, 2003, after the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that the novel coronavirus was the SARS pathogen, the whole country began a comprehensive fight against SARS.
April 20, 2003, was a critical juncture in the fight against SARS. Zhang Wenkang, then Minister of Health, was removed from his post as Party Secretary of the Ministry of Health and subsequently from his position as Minister of Health on April 26. Concurrently, Meng Xuenong was removed from his post as Deputy Secretary of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee, and Wang Qishan was urgently dispatched to Beijing to manage the crisis.
On June 24, 2003, the WHO announced the removal of Beijing from the list of SARS affected areas. The SARS epidemic ended.
Cautious Optimism Towards Public Health Outbreaks
In 2013, Zeng Guang, chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, summarized to the media: “For China’s public health cause, SARS was a milestone. It left us many lessons, one major lesson being that at the very beginning, the voice of public health experts was too weak.”
On March 5, 2019, Gao Fu, Director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and academician, stated in an exclusive interview with JinYang.com reporter: “SARS-like viruses could appear at any time, but I am confident that ‘SARS-like events’ will not happen again, because our country’s infectious disease monitoring network system is very well established, and such events will not recur.”
During SARS, Professor Huang Jianshi, an epidemiologist who urgently returned from the United States to fight the epidemic, pointed out in his speech at the University of Pittsburgh, “What Kind of Public Health Response System Should China Establish from the SARS Crisis,” that “the ecological imbalance caused by human modernization and its impact on lifestyles has led to the continuous emergence of new diseases. The turbulent world and the reality of domestic social transformation have made the emergence of bioterrorism not a question of ‘if’ but ‘when’. China’s unprecedented population base during its urbanization transformation towards a moderately prosperous society, coupled with dense populations and high mobility, provides an excellent breeding ground for infectious disease epidemics.”
As expected, in early 2020, an unforeseen novel coronavirus pneumonia (COVID-19) outbreak occurred in Wuhan.
A Scene Revisited
On December 26, 2019, Zhang Jixian, director of the Department of Respiratory Medicine at Hubei Provincial Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, received four patients with abnormal lung CT scans and reported the situation to the hospital. On the same day, the hospital reported the situation to the Jianghan District CDC, making her the first person to sound the alarm for epidemic prevention and control.
On December 31, 2019, Gao Fu, Director of the Chinese CDC, and the first batch of CDC experts went to Wuhan to investigate COVID-19. Subsequently, Gao Fu and others published a research article titled “Early Transmission Dynamics of Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia in Wuhan, China” in the world-renowned medical journal The New England Journal of Medicine, claiming that human-to-human transmission of COVID-19 had occurred among close contacts since mid-December 2019. (This paper was published on January 30, 2020).
On January 1, 2020, Wuhan shut down the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market.
On January 8, 2020, 14 days after the first patient was discovered, the National Health Commission preliminarily identified the novel coronavirus as the pathogen of the outbreak through parallel laboratory testing of case samples.
On January 19, 2019, China shared the genetic sequence of the novel coronavirus with the World Health Organization (WHO).
On January 20, 2020, Zhong Nanshan, a member of the second batch of National Health Commission experts, accepted an interview with CCTV and announced that human-to-human transmission of Wuhan COVID-19 was occurring.
On January 23, 2020, Wuhan announced a city lockdown. Zhou Xianwang, then Mayor of Wuhan, stated in a media interview that due to the Spring Festival return travel season, more than 5 million people had already left Wuhan for various parts of the world. On the same day, Wuhan announced the construction of Wuhan Huoshenshan Hospital, modeled after Beijing Xiaotangshan Hospital during the 2003 SARS outbreak.
On January 25, 2020, the first day of the Lunar New Year, the top leadership held a meeting and established an epidemic response leading group. On this day, New Year’s greetings, visits, and family gatherings were prohibited across the country, making this Spring Festival the quietest first day of the Lunar New Year in history.
On January 27, 2020, the Spring Festival holiday was extended to February 2. Subsequently, work resumption across the country was successively postponed to February 9 and February 14.
On February 11, 2020, official data showed that 42,744 cases of COVID-19 had been confirmed nationwide, with 1,017 deaths, and the epidemic was still ongoing.
Victorious Warriors Win First and Then Seek Battle
Compared to SARS in 2003, our epidemic prevention and control capabilities have indeed significantly improved this time. Medical teams from various regions rushed to support Wuhan, Huoshenshan and Leishenshan hospitals were rapidly built, various forces globally sought masks and protective gear, communities and villages quickly implemented closed management, and medical workers sacrificed their personal lives for the greater good, going to the front lines even when ill. These heroic deeds and people in emergencies are indeed inspiring, but what we need are mechanisms to prevent such emergencies from happening. Eliminating 99.99% of potential public health emergencies in their infancy is far more meaningful than fighting the virus head-on. Management guru Peter Drucker once said, “A well-managed factory is always boring, with no exciting events happening,” and governing a country is the same.
As a populous country with regional and diverse public health development, China is prone to public health emergencies every day. For a long time, we have tended to use temporary, highly coercive administrative measures to deal with crises, such as building Huoshenshan and Leishenshan hospitals and implementing closed management. This top-down campaign-style approach indeed has an immediate effect in blocking transmission routes and protecting vulnerable populations. However, the nationwide delay in resuming work and school has led to severe economic losses. After the epidemic ends, when rescue teams return to their original posts and various relief facilities are dismantled, how can the valuable experience gained in crisis management be systematized and institutionalized?
Sun Tzu’s Art of War, “Tactical Dispositions” chapter, states: “Thus, victorious warriors win first and then seek battle; defeated warriors seek battle first and then seek victory.” Therefore, only by establishing a comprehensive intelligence network, a sensitive defense system, an efficient advisory system, a capable command center, and ample logistical support before a war can frontline soldiers bravely fight and achieve swift victory during wartime.
Governing a large country is like cooking a small fish. The ideal state of life is one where response departments have already stifled disease in its infancy before the public even perceives a threat. Just as with highly happy countries like Finland, Denmark, and Norway, we rarely hear news about them in the media, while Afghanistan, which frequently makes headlines, is the most unfortunate country.
After enduring all hardships, brothers remain. I hope that after this epidemic passes, everyone can safely and healthily return to normal life and work; I hope everyone respects nature and refrains from buying, selling, or consuming wild animals; and I also hope that through this experience, everyone will respect science and scientists more, and follow the guidance of experts like Academician Zhong Nanshan and Academician Li Lanjuan to address shortcomings in the public health system and truly achieve high-quality development.
Immovable as a Mountain, Striking Like Thunder
Due to the epidemic, the post-holiday resumption of work has been repeatedly delayed, causing immense anxiety among business owners and entrepreneurs. They worry that prolonged closures, coupled with the need to pay employee salaries and tight cash flow, will make it impossible for their businesses to survive.
I hope everyone can remain calm. Firstly, epidemics like COVID-19 will not last long. Given the current prevention and control efforts and development trends, the epidemic should be fully lifted nationwide by the end of March. Secondly, for businesses in the fierce commercial jungle, rapid expansion and high-speed development are indeed important, but high-quality development, foresight, and establishing preventive mechanisms against major systemic risks are even more crucial. Many of our enterprises blindly pursue scale, aiming to be leading companies, to go public, and to become Fortune Global 500 companies. In their rapid pursuit, they often underestimate the emergence of black swan events, and even a slight disturbance can put the enterprise in peril. In contrast, many Japanese and German companies, though smaller in scale, possess extremely strong risk resistance and have survived for centuries. Instead of anxiety and worry, it is better to take this opportunity to calm down and think about countermeasures.
The occurrence of systemic risks is inevitable. Through this COVID-19 event, I hope our entrepreneurs can re-evaluate risks, reposition their company strategies, and consider whether to live longer or grow larger, how to survive in dynamic balance, and how to overcome the next crisis.
Published at: Jan 18, 2020 · Modified at: Dec 4, 2025
