China released a two-week-old speech showing President Xi Jinping was leading the national effort to contain the coronavirus, in an apparent effort to quell public anger over the handling of the outbreak.
Xi told China's most powerful leaders on Feb. 3 that he had "continuously given verbal and written instructions" since early January, and had personally ordered the quarantine of about 60 million people in Hubei province later that month. The full speech appeared on the website of the Qiushi Journal, the Communist Party's top publication, on Saturday.
"From the first day of Chinese New Year to the present, prevention and control of the epidemic situation was the issue I have been most concerned with," Xi said. "I have been keeping track of the spread of the epidemic situation and the progress of the prevention and control work, and continuously given verbal and written instructions."