That's new news. It took a long time to sink in with people. I was referring to what government should have done early one. It was not as clear back then. Difficult choices did not seem so easy to pick. The CHinese were lying to us about the disease. We didn't have all the facts yet. That's what I was referring too.
You're hanging your hat on that Chinese lie a bit too much. There was a period of about a month from mid-December to about mid-January when they tried covering things up, and did not succeed ver well. They disciplined a doc or two, then eventually they changed their M.O. and reported to WHO. This is all well-documented. Before that, all they seemed to have was uncoordinated reports of a weird pneumonia in Wuhan. I have heard this narrative from several quarters now.
During that period of attempted cover-up, the info was getting out anyway, and reporters have disclosed that the various intelligence agencies were on top of it all and knew it was happening. So maybe it's true to say that you and I didn't have adequate info by mid-Jan, people in power did. And the info got out fairly rapidly soon after.
What the Chinese government did was stupid but ineffective. Makes sense to be pissed off about it, but it is not THE critical act of the story, just one of them. The virus was going to get out, that's what they do.