COVID-19 lockdown in Wuhan

Notice No. 1, effective at 10:00

On 23 January 2020, Wuhan's epidemic-control command announced that from 10:00 local time the city's buses, metro, ferries and long-distance coaches would cease operating.

The same notice told residents not to leave Wuhan without a special reason and temporarily closed the airport and railway-station channels used to leave the city. Roughly 11 million people lived there.

The opening layer, not the whole lockdown

China banned travel to and from Wuhan as a cordon sanitaire meant to limit the novel coronavirus's geographical spread. Authorities acted after human-to-human transmission was confirmed and cases rose during the heavy Lunar New Year travel period.

Notice No. 1 named transit suspensions and outbound closures. Home confinement, private-vehicle rules and centralized quarantine were introduced or tightened in later stages.

The airport and railway provisions covered the routes used to leave Wuhan, which is narrower than halting every flight and train.

The WHO committee met the same day

The WHO emergency committee, meeting on 23 January, was told that public-transport systems had been closed in Wuhan and nearby cities. It did not recommend declaring a Public Health Emergency of International Concern; that declaration came on 30 January.

The figures put to the committee that day were 557 confirmed cases in China and 17 deaths among them. On 23 January, neither COVID-19 nor SARS-CoV-2 had yet become the official names for the disease and virus.