People anthropomorphize the CCP far too much. It's 100 million people.
What happened politically should be straightforward to anyone who's worked in a corporation: Wuhan mayor and Hubei governor tried to keep a lid on it, counterproductively, so their reports upstairs wouldn't look bad. They couldn't, higher authorities noticed, blew up the visibility on it, instituted nationwide programs to counter it, and fired the afore-mentioned mayor and governor.
What happened politically should be straightforward to anyone who's worked in a corporation: Wuhan mayor and Hubei governor tried to keep a lid on it, counterproductively, so their reports upstairs wouldn't look bad. They couldn't, higher authorities noticed, blew up the visibility on it, instituted nationwide programs to counter it, and fired the afore-mentioned mayor and governor.