Some months back, I had the same recollection: an article about suspicious pneumonia cases in China published by the BBC sometimes in December. I did some searching, and nothing, I think the first article is from the 31st of December. Funny how the mind can trick you, maybe it is linked to "Déjà vu" [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9j%C3%A0_vu