China did not come forward on its own to report to the World Health Organisation (WHO) that it had a problem in Wuhan following the virus outbreak late last year, according to the updated information the UN health agency posted about how it has handled the Covid-19 crisis so far.
On December 31, 2019, the WHO’s Country Office in China picked up a media statement by the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission from their website on cases of “viral pneumonia” in Wuhan, according to the chronology of events enumerated by the WHO. On January 1, the WHO requested information on the reported cluster of atypical pneumonia cases in Wuhan from the Chinese authorities.