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- At around 16:00 on 30 December, the head of the Emergency Department at Wuhan Central Hospital was handed the results of a test carried out by sequencing lab Capital Bio Medicals in Beijing.
She went into a cold sweat as she read the report, according to an interview given later to Chinese state media.
At the top were the alarming words: "SARS CORONAVIRUS". She circled them in bright red, and passed it on to colleagues over the Chinese messaging site WeChat.
Within an hour and a half, the grainy image with its large red circle reached a doctor in the hospital's ophthalmology department, Li Wenliang. He shared it with his hundreds-strong university class group, adding the warning, "Don't circulate the message outside this group. Get your family and loved ones to take precautions."