This is a catastrophe for the Chinese – not to say that they won't use their repressive apparatus to the full to contain this pandemic. But this is going to hit them very hard at the very worst moment, the country is already very restless.
SARS cost more than 9/11 in damage to the world economy, at least $54 billion:
https://www.cnbc.com/2014/02/05/counting-the-costs-of-a-global-epidemic.html
This epidemic is shaping to be far worse than SARS, just because of the latency period during which the disease can be spread before symptoms appear. This means the deed is done, and the infection is already spreading everywhere.
Everything here says this was a very carefully planned bioattack, but that's just my take. What is worth noting is Wuhan was also the first Chinese city to trial 5G on a campus: http://www.chinaopticsvalley.com/2019-02/26/c_341132.htm
I have personally noted catastrophic flu epidemics with multiple fatalities that coincided exactly with the rollout of new microwave technologies, like the first broadband rollouts. This may be another factor at play here.