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Why the numbers in Wuhan and Hubei are artificially low, or,:

Sealed in: Chinese trapped at home by coronavirus feel the strain
Feb 22, Reuters = 5 min read
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-quarantine-idUKKCN20G0AY

(article quotes are not consecutive)

1. Li said the family had eaten the same combination of white rice, cabbage and peanuts for three weeks... stinting on portions due to limits on the numbers of people from each household allowed out to shop....the family could now only buy food at the gate of their compound....Wuhan... says it will ensure food and other necessities through group orders as supermarkets stopped selling to individuals. Some communities have arranged for vendors to come to the their compounds gates. Hubei has said drugs and other necessities must be delivered to residents...Hundreds of official 24-hour telephone hotlines for psychological support have been launched since the beginning of the outbreak, but many are overwhelmed.

2. “Sealed management will continue so that no one will go outside, but they must still be able to buy their daily necessities,” Wuhan’s newly appointed Communist Party chief, Wang Zhonglin, said last Sunday.... policy depends heavily on residential committees, a network of volunteers who carry out government and Communist Party orders...“These people in the compound, when they get even a little bit of power, they will use all their energy to try to get in your way,” she said.
“It’s like the Stanford prison experiment,” she added...

Lancet study, Feb 24, 2020

Clinical course and outcomes of critically ill patients with SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia in Wuhan, China: a single-centered, retrospective, observational study

Xiaobo Yang, MD Yuan Yu, MD Jiqian Xu, MD Prof Huaqing Shu, MD Prof Jia’an Xia, MD Prof Hong Liu, MD et al.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(20)30079-5/fulltext

Selected quotes, technical data at link (what is lacking is detail on which patients got which antivirals):

The primary outcome was 28-day mortality after ICU admission. Secondary outcomes were incidence of SARS-CoV-2-related acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). ARDS and shock were defined according to the guidance of WHO for novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).6 Acute kidney injury was identified on the basis of serum creatinine.11 Cardiac injury was diagnosed if the serum concentration of hypersensitive cardiac troponin I (hsTNI) was above the upper limit of the reference range (>28 pg/mL), measured in the laboratory of Jin Yin-tan Hospital....

We report on 52 critically ill patients with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, characterised by severe hypoxaemia. 32 (61·5%) of critically ill patients had died at 28 days. Of all included patients, 37 (71%) required mechanical ventilation and 35 (67%) had ARDS....

...The fundamental pathophysiology of severe viral pneumonia is severe ARDS. Men and people of an older age (>65 years) are more likely to develop ARDS than women or those of a younger age.16 Therefore, it is reasonable that the mortality at 28 days of severe SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia is similar to the mortality of severe ARDS, which is near 50%.17...

... fever was not detected at the onset of illness in six (11·5%), and that it was in fact detected 2–8 days later. The delay of fever manifestation hinders early identification of patients infected with SARS-CoV-2—if patients are asymptomatic identification of suspected cases is more difficult.19, 20 The median duration from onset of symptoms to radiological confirmation of pneumonia was 5 (3–7) days, meaning that early or repeated radiological examinations are useful in screening patients with SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia.4...

…. we postulate that necrosis or apoptosis of lymphocytes also induces lymphocytopenia in critically ill patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection. In a previous study, mainly in non-critical patients infected with SARS-CoV-2, 35% of patients had only mild lymphocytopenia,2 suggesting that the severity of lymphocytopenia reflects the severity of SARS-CoV-2 infection.