The world is recently finding that there were cases of Covid-19 in China at least since November 2019 or perhaps even earlier. However, no case was officially reported in China until December 8, and it was not until December 31 that the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission reported a cluster of cases of "pneumonia" in that city of Hubei Province.
Next day, on the 1st of January, the World Health Organization (WHO) set up an Incident Management Support Team for dealing with the outbreak and reported four days later that there was a cluster of pneumonia cases –with no deaths– in Wuhan. Along the following days, WHO issued advice on how to detect, test and manage such potential cases of pneumonia, relying on Chinese official sources and following their advice.
WHO's Director General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, called several press conferences during the following weeks insisting that there was no pandemic and asserting that the outbreak was under control with proper prophylactic measures. In the meantime, he traveled to Beijing on January 28 to meet China’s leadership and to offer technical and scientific assistance.
On January 30, WHO reported that human-to-human transmission was limited, according to Chinese sources. However, a WHO's situation report reported on the same day 7818 total confirmed cases worldwide, with the majority of these in China, and 82 cases reported in 18 countries outside China.
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