These dudes were saying that China could have prevented the pandemic but they choose to let flights out of Hubei a day before the quarantine.
A cursory look through Wikipedia shows that international cases were confirmed well before Wuhan was locked down. So my workmates are full of shit, right? Sorry, I don't follow this thing closely.
Sorry for making you have to listen to more anti Chinese bullshit.
No, they couldn't. The virus was found outside of China before it was detected in Hubei, it was already out before it was detected.
Also, international flights were shut down out of Hubei pretty much as soon as it was confirmed that it was a transmissible disease. There was a bug on flighttracker where it showed as taken off from there hence the conspiracy theories but it's not on the landing records and the CEO confirmed it was a bug
This one’s the answer.
France had Covid back in November. There was nothing that could have been done.
OK this fucking clinches it. Thank you @sysgen and @KiaKaha
Also, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting did a piece on the disinfo surrounding China's response if you're interested