Los primeros días

At the end of January 2020, Jaime Santirso, then a correspondent for El País in China, flew to Wuhan to report on the epidemic of the new coronavirus from its source of spread. A few hours after his arrival, the city was fully armored by order of the Xi Jinping government. Suddenly trapped by the severe restrictions and stalked by the invisible threat of the disease, the reporter set out to walk the deserted streets of the city in search of the answers that everyone longed for but that neither the official channels nor the media could still give. From that total and abrupt immersion in the epicenter of the pandemic, from the professional and human effort to know, interpret and inform, chronicles of inestimable testimonial value were born that would constitute the seed of this book. The reader can find in these pages the personal and journalistic account of one of the few correspondents who had the privilege and the courage to tell, from the first days, one of the events destined to mark the 21st century.