> Taxi drivers in Hong Kong were telling me about some bad flu in the Mainland around Christmas.

I guess that's possible as a rumor. I had taken the other comment to mean there was publicly verified information at that time. Perhaps we just miscommunicated.

Certainly Dr. Li Wenliang of Wuhan, who later died of covid, had told friends in a private messaging group [1] to take precautions because something SARS-like was back.

> It was known in Asia far before it'd been reported in western media.

Parts of China, maybe. I wouldn't say "in Asia" as if all of Japan, Taiwan, SE Asia knew.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Wenliang#Role_in_COVID-19_p...