(group shouting in Chinese)
(crowd cheering)
(bells ringing)
(calm light music)
Narrator: This was Wuhan
in the first few moments of 2020
celebrating the new year like any other city.
(Xi speaking in Chinese)
(bright exuberant music)
(Xi speaking in Chinese)
(crowd singing in Chinese)
(Xi speaking in Chinese)
Narrator: On the morning of January 1st,
this speech by China's president
was broadcast all across the country.
Later that afternoon,
another message went out on state media.
(announcer speaking in Chinese)
This message faded into the background
when the whole country was celebrating.
It barely registered with people, including me.
I've lived in the U.S. for nine years
and each year in January, I would return to my home in China
to celebrate the Chinese New Year with my family.
(speaking in Chinese)
This year, I traveled with my two-year-old son.
(fireworks popping)
This was the last moment I can remember
when life still felt normal.
(dramatic sounds)
In the weeks and months that followed,
as the world plunged into chaos and confusion,
this image returned to my mind.
And the news bulletin from that same day hung in my memory.
(announcer speaking in Chinese)
When I look at these people now,
unaware of what was spreading between them,
I feel like we are all still standing there, in that moment.
(light tense music)
On January 23rd, I left my son in China
so he could spend the holiday with my mom
and I flew back to the U.S. for a work trip.
As soon as I landed in the U.S.,
the Chinese government announced it was locking down Wuhan.
(crowd yelling)
(broadcaster speaking in Chinese)
All 11 million people living in Wuhan
were sealed off from the outside world.
And other cities all around the country
were starting to barricade themselves
to stop the virus from reaching them.
(man speaking in Chinese)
(woman speaking in Chinese)
Not knowing whether my family was safe
in our hometown, 200 miles east of Wuhan,
I scrolled through the news,
trying to find more information.
On the evening of Wuhan's lockdown,
this was broadcast on national and local TV.
(reporter speaking in Chinese)
(bright regal music)
(Xi speaking in Chinese)
(audience applauding)
While this was being broadcast on TV,
this is what was on social media.
(man coughing)
(crowd chattering)
People were dying on the streets.
Posts like these were deleted
from social media by government censors.
Simply filming on the street
with a cell phone became sensitive.
(officer speaking in Chinese)
Finally, a family member who worked
in the hospital told me that our town
had several confirmed cases,
but the government was ordering hospital staff
to keep it a secret.
I knew we had to get our son out of the country.
My husband bought the first available ticket to pick him up.
I spent hours reading social media posts
and I discovered a forum
for people who have tested positive
but couldn't get treatment
because hospitals were overwhelmed.
Thousands of people were uploading their names, ID pictures,
phone numbers, and their X-rays
in hopes of getting some access to care.
(cameras snapping)
Seeing these patients brought back memories
of a moment from when I was 11 years old.
My father was in the hospital
getting treatment for heart disease
and was surrounded by people who were dying.
My mom had to work nonstop to afford the medical bills,
so I stayed at the hospital, taking care of my dad.
These lines of people waiting for care in Wuhan
reminded me of the lines I stood in
to fill out paperwork or get medication for my father.
I was small, even for an 11-year-old,
and people would often push past me
and the staff would ignore me.
Not long after that, my father died at 33 years old.
The grief and powerlessness I felt in losing him like that,
wondering if he could have lived longer
had he gotten better care,
it shaped me into who I am
and later drove me to make documentaries.
I archived as many posts as I could,
and I tried to reaching out to a few major newspapers
in the U.S. with the hope that news coverage
could somehow help these people.
(light downcast music)
None of the newspapers I contacted would pursue this story.
(suspense music)
I decided to try and contact local camera people in Wuhan
to start collecting people's stories.
What they sent was my first real glimpse
of what life in Wuhan looked like under quarantine.
(reporter speaking in Chinese)
Every movement required approval
from party officials.
Only people who got a special letter of permission
from the government could film at the hospitals,
and a few of them agreed to film for me,
each for different reasons.
(journalists speaking in Chinese)
This was some of the first footage
they filmed inside the hospital.
(speaking in Chinese)
When I noticed the camera people
were turning off their cameras
whenever they saw something negative,
I suggested that they put multiple cameras
in different places around the hospital
and keep filming all day long.
(heart monitor beeping)
This shot captured the camera person
sitting down to take a break.
I also told them to film non-stop
with their handheld cameras,
and they took the instructions very literally.
This shot of a patient's foot lasted for five minutes,
but then someone caught the camera person's attention.
(speaking in Chinese)
This detail surprised me.
The father kept saying that he and his son
were infected in December.
This would have been a month
before the government announced the outbreak.
I wanted to interview doctors and nurses about this
but I was told that every interview request
had to be approved by the government.
In one moment captured by a camera placed in the lobby,
the media was staging interviews with doctors and nurses.
(group speaking in Chinese)
Everywhere our camera person filmed,
there were media crews working
for the state and local Propaganda Department.
I learned that the government sent hundreds of journalists
to report on the situation in Wuhan.
On TV, the Propaganda Department laid out a strategy
for covering the outbreak.
(man speaking in Chinese)
(woman speaking in Chinese)
(man speaking in Chinese)
"Positive" is a word
that I heard over and over on TV.
Even some of our camera people agreed
that it was important to portray the situation positively
and one of them explained why.
(man speaking in Chinese)
(group shouting in Chinese)
Many doctors would only tell positive stories.
Just a few agreed to speak with me,
but only anonymously.
(ominous music)
(Doctors speaking in Chinese)
Unable to get doctors
from state-owned hospitals to speak,
I searched and found private clinic owners.
Chen and her husband, Liu, run a small clinic,
near Huanan Seafood Market,
the wet market where the first COVID-19 cases
were discovered.
(Chen speaking in Chinese)
(man speaking in Chinese)
(Chen speaking in Chinese)
(patients speaking in Chinese)
(patient coughing)
All of these patients
came in within four days of each other in December.
Some of them later would test positive for COVID.
(Liu speaking in Chinese)
On December 26th,
Dr. Liu developed a fever himself.
When his condition worsened,
he tried to get treatment at a hospital.
(light tense music)
(Chen speaking in Chinese)
(interviewer speaking in Chinese)
(Chen speaking in Chinese)
(interviewer speaking in Chinese)
(Chen speaking in Chinese)
Between January 1st and January 2nd,
four different hospitals refused to treat Liu,
and none of them offered a reason that made any sense.
I gathered every source of information I could
on the early days of the outbreak
to see if I could find an explanation.
This article published by scientists from Wuhan
in an international medical journal
said the first known case of unexplained pneumonia
was recorded on December 1st.
On December 26th, a private lab tested samples
from patients.
One of the lab technicians posted their discoveries
about the virus on his blog.
They described the virus as a subtype of SARS.
They also shared their findings
with government health officials in Wuhan.
Then, on December 30th, in a private group chat,
a few doctors in Wuhan warned friends and family
about this new SARS-like virus.
One of the doctors was named Li Wenliang,
who would later die after being infected by a patient.
Screenshots of these chats circulated on social media.
And on January 1st,
those eight doctors ended up on the news.
(broadcasters speaking in Chinese)
On the same day that the eight doctors
were punished, Liu visited four of the hospitals
where the punished doctors had been working.
He was turned away from all of them.
Many of the doctors at these hospitals must have known
this new virus was spreading between people,
but they were afraid to say so
for fear of punishment from the government.
(Chen speaking in Chinese)
(Chen sobbing)
(thunder rumbling)
(Chen speaking in Chinese)
For three weeks
following the punishment of those eight doctors,
the government continuously reassured the public
that the virus was contained,
and wasn't spreading between people.
(journalists speaking in Chinese)
(Li speaking in Chinese)
(Liu speaking in Chinese)
(heart monitor beeping)
(China's National Anthem)
(singing in Chinese)
During this time,
as healthcare workers and patients
were spreading the virus in hospitals,
the Annual People's Congress in Hubei province
was held in Wuhan.
Every province holds one of these meetings
at the beginning of each year.
It's a chance for party officials to make big speeches
and set the agenda for the coming year.
(audience applauding)
It would not have been a good time
to announce the spread of a new virus.
(official speaking in Chinese)
(audience applauding)
The Congress lasted for two weeks
and during that time, the government announced each day
that there were no new coronavirus cases.
(eerie music)
On January 20th, two days after the Congress ended,
the government announced for the first time
that the virus could spread between people.
(speaking in Chinese)
(tense dramatic music)
Three days later, the city was locked down.
Hospitals and emergency hotlines
immediately were overwhelmed.
(healthcare workers speaking in Chinese)
(heart monitor beeping)
(healthcare workers speaking in Chinese)
The footage the camera people sent me
revealed so many families facing this exact situation.
A loved one was near death
but no hospital would admit them.
(indistinct chatter)
(healthcare workers peaking in Chinese)
(light ominous music)
(family members speaking in Chinese)
This shot of medics,
walking to pick up a patient,
lasted for 15 minutes.
The roads and entrances to many neighborhoods
had been blocked during the lockdown.
It often took the medics a long time to reach a patient.
As I watched them pass by each building,
I thought of the people who posted their chest X-rays
on the social media forum.
I wondered how many of them
could have been sitting by their apartment windows
watching the medics come closer,
only to pass their window
and disappear around the corner.
I thought the government would have wanted
to conceal moments like this from the public
but instead, outbreak stories were broadcast nonstop on TV.
(dramatic music)
(siren blaring)
(flame whooshing)
(announcer speaking in Chinese)
(speaking in Chinese)
After watching hundreds
of these State media programs myself,
I saw a pattern of story-types that were being approved
by the Propaganda Department.
Stories that inspired confidence and hope.
One topic in particular, kept showing up in the broadcast.
(broadcasters speaking in Chinese)
(baby crying)
(speaking in Chinese)
These stories were nationally televised
and watched by millions.
(singing in Chinese)
When I lived in China,
I remember feeling moved
watching these kinds of state TV broadcasts
about regular people overcoming adversity,
fighting for each other.
But I don't remember ever questioning
where the adversity came from in the first place
or why the government's Propaganda Department
was showing it to me.
But now it's clear that when the government
is telling us where to look,
they're also telling us where not to look.
(line trilling)
I called the people on the social media forum
who had posted their X-rays
and their phone numbers online.
(family members speaking in Chinese)
(suspense music)
(speaking in Chinese)
Each person I spoke to
described unbearable trauma and loss.
(somber music)
Ding is a taxi driver.
His mother died in a hospital lobby
after waiting days for a bed.
A nurse told him not to cry or wipe his tears
because it would increase his own risk of infection.
Yawen is a college student whose entire family was infected.
Her father and grandfather died one day apart.
Zhou Li and her husband were infected
and went to sleep on the floor of the hospital lobby
to protect their 13-year-old son from the infection.
Li Qiong's husband and daughter are both U.S. citizens.
They traveled to Wuhan
for the Chinese New Year celebrations.
When the lockdown started,
her husband and daughter managed to board a flight
back to the U.S.,
but Li Qiong stayed in Wuhan
to care for her father, who was infected.
When I first learned Li Qiong's story,
it reminded me of when I had to get my son out of China.
(woman speaking in Chinese)
Once my son was home,
I was full of anxiety and guilt
about being separated from my mother.
I worried about who would take care of her if she got sick.
Li Qiong was living my worst fear.
(Li speaking in Chinese)
Reporter: Wucinski's wife, Li Qiong's father,
who's been ill with the virus,
was waiting for weeks to get a hospital bed.
He says hospital beds are hard to find.
His wife and her dad are sleeping in the parking lot,
just to be first in line.
Wucinski says, with the hospital's full,
they were left to care for him alone.
Reporter: Frank Wucinski and his three-year-old daughter
Narrator: Just as I reached out to reporters in the U.S.
to find help, Li Qiong's husband, Frank, went to the media,
hoping that the exposure could somehow help
Li Qiong and her father.
-: And then now, she's been diagnosed...
Narrator: But Frank's interviews had a different impact
that neither of them expected.
(Frank coughing)
Reporter: Now, Frank can't stop coughing.
So he takes a swig from his daughter's water bottle,
hands it back, and she continues to drink from it.
Uh-oh.
(Frank coughing)
Narrator: This moment of him coughing went viral.
(ominous music)
Looking through the thousands of comments
on Frank's interview,
I wondered why did so many people believe
that Frank was part of some conspiracy?
And what convinced them that the virus wasn't a threat?
-: Are you worried about a pandemic at this point?
-: No, we're not at all.
And we have it totally under control.
We think we have it very well under control.
-: The risk to Americans is low.
-: By April, you know, in theory
when it gets a little warmer and miraculously goes away.
-: Right now, don't worry about it.
Be more concerned about influenza.
-: The immediate risk to the general American public
remains low.
-: This is a flu.
This is like a flu.
-: The Americans, independent of where they live
in this nation, are at low risk.
The American public needs to go on with their normal lives.
(eerie music)
Reporter: Tonight with latest
on the coronavirus outbreak.
The first confirmed case in New York City,
Governor Cuomo is reminding New Yorkers,
the risk of getting coronavirus remains low.
-: For the vast majority of New Yorkers,
life is going on pretty normally right now,
and we wanna encourage that.
There's very little threat here.
This disease, even if you were to get it,
basically acts like a common cold or a flu.
Narrator: Like most people in the U.S.,
I trusted that the risk here was low
and lived my life normally.
(speaking in Chinese)
My mom saw the news
that the virus had reached New York.
She called and told us to wear masks outside.
She sent me a video of a friend of hers
being caught without a mask in public.
(speaking in Chinese)
He was detained the next day.
The video made me angry
at the Chinese government for overreacting.
I told my mom she was being paranoid
and I translated and sent her videos from American experts.
-: Right now in the United States,
people should not be walking around with masks.
-: You're sure of it?
'Cause people are listening really closely to this.
-: Right now people should not be,
there's no reason to be walking around with a mask.
Narrator: Then, in an instant, everything changed.
Reporter: Confirmed cases in New York City is now 36.
Now 53.
154.
183.
329.
814.
3,615.
5,151.
Governor: We're going to put out
an executive order today.
100% of the workforce must stay home.
(eerie music)
Narrator: Just like in Wuhan,
America's largest city went from hearing
that the virus didn't pose a threat
to finding itself under lockdown.
I watched the news each day in disbelief.
How did I not see it coming,
even though there had been so many warning signs
since I first came back to the U.S. from China?
On January 23rd, the day of Wuhan's lockdown,
when I arrived at customs, there was no temperature check,
nobody asking where I had come from
or if I was feeling sick.
Then a week after coming back from China,
my son Jamie developed a fever.
Our first thought was that he might've been infected.
When we took him to the ER,
the doctors said he couldn't get tested
and told us not to worry.
They said the virus wasn't spreading in the U.S.
and they sent us home.
I felt surprised that he couldn't get tested,
even though he had just come from China and had symptoms,
but I trusted the doctors.
They were the experts
and they were following the CDC's guidelines.
(Jamie coughing)
We self-quarantined, just to be safe,
and after a week, Jamie was back to normal.
Just a few weeks later,
when I looked out my window in New Jersey,
I started to see reflections of scenes from Wuhan.
By April, the nearest testing site to my home
was filling to capacity hours before it opened.
I realized that I had fully bought
into the idea that America was too advanced
to suffer an outbreak like China's.
But every time I turned on the news,
I heard echoes of China's outbreak all across America.
Broadcaster: Hospitals across the country
are bracing for a surge in coronavirus patients--
Reporter: Frontline medical workers
are facing shortages on N95 masks--
Reporter: Unsettling pictures of nurses
in a New York City hospital wearing garbage bags.
Reporter: We're concerned we don't have the equipment
to tackle this problem.
Reporter: Well, hospitals are overwhelmed.
Reporter: Hospitals are getting close
to being overwhelmed.
Health worker: Our ICU is 95% full.
Reporter: This is overwhelming hospitals
and first responders.
(heart monitor beeping)
-: When they were shutting down Wuhan,
I was really concerned about the videos
that were coming up online.
So I started asking questions in the hospital.
What are the protocols?
What are gonna be the procedures?
How are we gonna handle the situation?
And how are we preparing for this?
They told me, "yeah, yeah, yeah, we're preparing."
There was nothing ever provided to us
as far as information or training
until the first patient actually came to the hospital.
And that same day, they were trying to train the nurses
how to don and doff the PPE,
but nothing was ever given in writing.
It's sort of like walking into a fire
and you have nothing to stop the fire.
And here you are raising the alarm
and trying to call for help,
and everybody's just kind of brushing you off.
I was accused of causing hysteria and spreading rumors.
Narrator: It sounded exactly like the way
doctors in Wuhan were punished for sounding the alarm.
It was a pattern across the country.
Reporter: An emergency room physician lost his job
after publicly criticizing
the hospital's response to the coronavirus.
Reporter: A nurse has been fired
for posting a video online.
[Reporter] He was fired after expressing
safety concerns to the media.
Reporter: Hospitals are warning them
not to talk to the media
-: Nurses in one of our floors were wearing garbage bags
because they were denied gowns.
The moment you open your mouth,
you conceivably could become a target,
and then they're gonna try to take away your job.
People who were outspoken about PPE,
that happened to another nurse,
I think, further north in Jersey.
-: This is what they tried to make me wear.
This surgical mask is the thinnest I've ever seen.
It's like toilet paper.
I had a few N95s at home.
I would take one with me to work.
Our manager came up to me
and told me that I had to take off my gloves and mask,
and that I wasn't allowed to wear them.
And then I even made the plea for her to let me wear it
because I had promised my son that I would protect myself
and him and my family while coming in to the hospital.
And at that point in time, my supervisor told me
that she strongly suggests I find a different career.
-: There's never been like a great communication
of like, listen, these are our supplies.
This is what we have.
This is how we have to ration these things, you know?
The first few weeks of it,
the CDC standards were changing almost daily
and it was not based on science but based on supplies,
and every day you come in and there'd be a new standard.
And so each day you're trying to understand, you know,
why is this okay today?
-: When the CDC produced their new and improved guidelines
and the CDC was saying
that we didn't need to wear masks outside you know,
going to public places
and that we weren't protected by wearing them,
I knew initially, I knew immediately something was wrong.
I believe that the CDC made that guideline
to provide ample supply to the healthcare workers,
but instead they should have stated their intentions.
And now that they've altered their recommendations
based on supply, I feel that not only myself,
but a lot of healthcare workers
are having a problem trusting in the CDC now.
-: The CDC went as far as saying
that if we didn't have a mask, just wear a scarf.
What kind of agency are you?
How can you have any credibility?
How can you ever expect
that we will believe you or trust you?
This is a reflection of a broken system
that was already in the verge of death.
When I decided to speak up,
I said I'm gonna lose my job,
they're probably gonna fire me the next day,
but I didn't care
because it was so bad and nothing mattered anymore.
(tense music)
I'll never forget a patient who had
do not intubate, do not resuscitate orders already.
They actually allowed the wife to come
and say her last goodbye to her husband.
And she came out of the room
and she just stood there
and she looked so lost.
She was crying.
So I came over and I said I was sorry
and if there was anything else I could do for her,
so she just nodded no.
And then she said, "Thank you for taking care of him."
And I gave her a hug.
I gave her a hug.
I probably shouldn't have done that,
but I felt so bad for her because she, you know,
I was glad she had the opportunity to come and see him,
but she was alone.
And it was just too much.
I didn't know what to do.
I just think we didn't know what to do.
We tried our best to do whatever we could
and it didn't make a difference anyway for a lot of them.
(suspense music)
Narrator: At the time, when I spoke with Diana,
she had been isolating herself
from her husband and three kids.
She filmed video diaries to show people
what healthcare workers were going through.
When I talk to healthcare workers like her,
I noticed they'd often burst into tears
at times of when they talked about the deaths they witnessed
or their separation from their families.
But also at times that seemed unexpected to me.
-: I'm sorry, hold on. (Chokes up)
Narrator: It was then I realized
how vast their trauma must be
and how invisible it still was to the rest of the world.
-: I just, I guess I need a second.
(suspense music)
All right.
I was just talking with my neighbor today,
if I can say this.
And we're talking about how everyone is holding up
and you know, my fear...
Jesus.
(Adam clears throat)
I didn't know this was in me,
like how upset I'm getting right now.
There are nurses, especially in the ICUs
who are dealing with a lot of death
and a lot of just patients crashing.
A lot of the patients once they're intubated,
don't necessarily make it.
I work in the ED.
We had some patients like this
but we didn't have them to the degree
and for the length that those ICU nurses have.
If this is how this is making me feel,
I don't know how those nurses are gonna crash
once they stop and start talking about this stuff.
(suspense music)
(heart monitor beeping)
(healthcare workers speaking in Chinese)
(somber music)
Narrator: More than 40,000 healthcare workers
from other provinces was sent to Wuhan
to help local hospitals.
They left their own families for two months
and stayed in Wuhan until a few days
before the lockdown was lifted.
When I saw them taking off their suits,
I realized how young many of them were.
Their lives had barely started
and they found themselves so far from home,
fighting an unknown virus,
surrounded by chaos and death.
(man speaking in Chinese)
On the day they prepare to leave Wuhan,
the local authorities held celebrations to thank them.
These events celebrated the Communist Party
as much as they celebrated the healthcare workers.
(woman speaking in Chinese)
(audience applauding)
(men speaking in Chinese)
(audience applauding)
(group singing in Chinese)
I've seen ceremonies like this
play out over and over after major disasters in China.
People emerge from the trauma of these events
with even stronger patriotic sentiment than before.
(regal inspiring music)
(group singing in Chinese)
(healthcare workers singing in Chinese)
(group singing in Chinese)
Disasters become propaganda tools
instead of inspiring change.
These images become the official history of the disaster.
It was another triumph for the Communist Party.
(light tense music)
(reporters speaking in Chinese)
(speaking in Chinese)
(group shouting in Chinese)
(reporter speaking in Chinese)
(Tao speaking in Chinese)
(speaking in Chinese)
(engine roaring)
The day Tao went to the funeral home
to pick up the ashes of his son,
our camera person followed him there.
It was the second time our camera person
tried to go to the funeral home.
The first time, he almost was arrested.
(speaking in Chinese)
At the time,
I couldn't understand what was sensitive
about people collecting the ashes.
I suggested that the camera person film
from inside the car.
(suspense music)
The government prohibited funerals
and formal ceremonies,
so many people made small, traditional
death offerings on sidewalks.
By April, the official death total
from COVID in Wuhan was 3,335.
Most victims' ashes had been held
by state-run funeral homes until then.
And when the government announced the ashes
would be released to family members,
it ordered that all remains be collected
and buried within two weeks.
(Chen speaking in Chinese)
(crowd chattering)
(Ding speaking in Chinese)
(suspense music)
(Liu speaking in Chinese)
This was one of sixteen public cemeteries in Wuhan.
The city has eight funeral homes
and all of them are run by the state.
Since the outbreak, the government has heavily restricted
reporting on the funeral homes.
One employee agreed to speak to me anonymously.
(speaking in Chinese)
(woman crying)
(Liu speaking in Chinese)
Crowd: Open California!
Open California!
(crowds chanting)
(crowds cheering)
-: Not a single person do I know
that has had the coronavirus.
Not one, not one.
And I know a lot of people.
-: They're inflating the numbers of the COVID deaths.
The CDC is actually paying hospitals to call deaths COVID.
-: I know the propaganda is out there
and I can't stand it.
If you really wanna know, I am pissed off.
-: Say no to anybody who tells you
that the most important thing for you to do
is to listen to your government.
Give up your God-given rights.
-: Any governor that's given an order
for people to stay at home or to wear face masks,
you're violating our liberty.
Crowd: Freedom!
Freedom!
Narrator: As I watched the protesters in America,
I thought about Peien.
He said that tens of thousands died in China
because there was no freedom of speech.
I wondered what he would think
if he could see what was happening here.
-: I feel like the American government
is trying to be more like China,
which is a communist country.
And I feel like being free is what separates us
from other countries.
Narrator: Nine years ago, when I moved to the U.S.,
it was the idea of freedom that attracted me.
I had never seen a protest until I came to the U.S.
The closest thing to a protest I had ever seen in China
was six people standing on the side of the road,
and all of them ended up in prison.
Nobody would look at these people
and say that they are free.
Crowd: U.S.A! (horn honks)
U.S.A!
Narrator: But is this what freedom looks like?
-: U.S.A!
-: What do you want here?
You can't come in here--
-: You're not looking at facts.
Look for facts.
(protesters yelling)
-: Right here, I got my mask under my balls.
(horns honking)
You got nothing to say, do you?
I didn't think so.
Narrator: I recognize the confidence the protesters had.
I felt the same way when my mom called
and told me to wear a mask.
I trusted the experts I was listening to.
Fauci: People should not be walking around with masks.
There's no reason to be walking around with a mask.
Narrator: And I recognized that same sense of trust
in the way the protesters
repeated what they heard from people they trusted.
Trump: You treat this like a flu.
This is a flu.
This is like a flu.
-: It's going to be around forever.
It's a new strain of the flu.
That's what it is.
-: What we have right now
is a bad case of the flu running loose
and we've decided to close down the country.
Reporter: Mr.President, the questions is,
have you seen anything that the Wuhan Institute of Virology
was the origin of this virus?
Trump: Yes I have, yes I have.
-: First of all, I think it was a man-made virus.
-: I would believe that they would have done that
on purpose for population control.
Man On TV: How can you start it in a lab?
Woman On TV: Science has been modified or manipulated
in laboratories with patents held by Bill Gates.
This whole information is all out there.
You hold the patent and you hold the vaccine
and you hold the virus,
and you hold the plan-demic.
-: You know, these people, they're ignorant.
This is not a political agenda.
This is something that we have to come to and unite.
We have to be united to fight this.
This is stupid.
Narrator: When I first saw the protestors,
I had the same reaction.
It was tempting to dismiss them as crazy or brainwashed
but as I listened more carefully,
I heard them expressing the same fear
of misinformation that I had.
-: Our concern here is that now it has become political.
The most important fact
is to get data that is 100% accurate,
not politically manufactured.
-: Accurate information is absolutely imperative
because we have too many people that just follow the leader
and the leader can lead them
to the edge of a cliff and they would go,
and that's what will happen with our country.
-: Don't accept blindly what we're saying to you.
Right now the problem is people are just blindly
accepting what the government says to them,
and they have to understand that when you do that,
you unwittingly sell your soul to tyranny.
Narrator: We all think of ourselves as capable
of separating truth from falsehood,
but how can we make that distinction
where misinformation
comes from the people we're supposed to trust?
Crowd: U.S.A!
U.S.A!
Reporter: New concerns tonight as more states
break coronavirus daily case records.
As the country reopens, former FDA commissioner
Dr. Scott Gottlieb is sounding the alarm.
Reporter: The worry is that they're gonna tip over
to exponential growth coming this week.
Nicole: I remember thinking back when this whole pandemic
started, I was scared and I just prayed.
I said, "God, please let me see my 34th birthday."
And I think a lot of people think like that now.
Doctors and nurses and firefighters and MTA workers.
People are just,
it got to a point, people were just dropping like flies.
(downcast music)
Woman: The funeral's really for the family,
and when you really get to meet the families
and you get the narrative about these people who once lived,
like you and I.
So you get the narrative,
he was a teacher, he was a doctor.
He loved music.
He loved this.
He loved that.
She was a great mom, a great grandmother.
(somber music)
Reporter: Infections are soaring
to new highs across the country.
Reporter: On Saturday Florida broke
its single day record.
Reporter: Last four weeks,
the United States has seen a 42% increase
in the number of deaths.
Broadcaster: With a stunning number.
Broadcaster: A grim milestone.
Broadcaster: It's the highest total
of any country in the world.
(reporters speaking in Chinese)
(regal music)
(Woman speaking in Chinese)
(speaking in Chinese)
(downcast music)
Narrator: At the beginning of the outbreak,
I thought the public would demand greater transparency
from the government,
but several months later, only a few critical voices remain.
(speaking in Chinese)
Chen Qiushi is a human rights lawyer
and a citizen journalist who live streamed
the reports from the ground in Wuhan
when the outbreak started.
(Chen speaking in Chinese)
He posted his videos on YouTube
and they were viewed millions of times.
Two days after he interviewed Peien, he disappeared.
This was the last video he posted before his disappearance.
(Chen speaking in Chinese)
(Liu speaking in Chinese)
(downcast music)
Narrator: Since Chen Qiushi's disappearance,
more than a dozen activists
have been arrested or disappeared
for documenting Wuhan's outbreak.
Reporter: A Chinese citizen journalist
was arrested by police.
Robot voice: Li Zehua, 25,
a citizen journalist in Wuhan.
Woman: Fang Bin went missing.
Lady: Cai Wei and Chen Mei.
They had published censored articles
on China's handling of the Wuhan virus.
Reporter: 37-year-old Zhang Zhan
was found guilty on Monday.
Reporter: Zhang Zhan was found guilty.
Reporter: Zhang Zhan has been sentenced
to four years in prison.
Narrator: Hearing news of the arrests reminded me
of the news announcement from January 1st.
(reporter speaking in Chinese)
It's hard for me to picture
how all of this might end,
but I can clearly imagine
how this could have been begun differently.
(dramatic music)
(woman speaking in Chinese)
Reporter: Chinese officials are warning
that a new infectious disease identified in Wuhan
has potential to spread widely.
The CDC is working to roll out a massive testing program.
The president is urging all Americans
to avoid unnecessary travel.
Narrator: Of course, that wasn't how all of this began.
A year later, the New Year's celebration in Wuhan
looks almost exactly the same as the year before.
(bells ringing)
(crowd cheering)
(suspense music)
The whole world seems eager to return
to a feeling of normal, but it was circumstances
we considered normal that created the crisis
we are living through now.
There will be an ending to the pandemic,
but I worry that something even more frightening
is just beginning.
(intense music)
Reporter: The World Health Organization
has praised China's response.
Man: I will praise China again and again.
Man: China mounted the most effective
containment program in history.
Reporter: The coronavirus may put China
in a stronger position.
Reporter: Authoritarianism was already on the rise
before COVID-19.
Reporter: Authoritarian leaders are using this
to push through autocratic measures.
Reporter: It started out as a medical crisis.
It has become a test of our form of government.
Narrator: I have lived under authoritarianism
and I have lived in a society
that calls itself free.
In both systems, ordinary people become casualties
of their leaders' pursuit of power.
(birds chirping)
(suspense music)