It seems absurd that as predictable information updated, a government acted on that information once it was confirmed".

Talk about a strawman, that's almost the exact opposite of what I said. The whole point is that they already saw cases spreading, rapidly, before the 13th. Discussion doesn't work when one's basis for a point is an obviously dishonest distortion of what the other person is saying.

This is the exact sort of preparation that the WHO was calling for, China wasn't just sitting on their hands doing nothing even when they weren't sure.

They were sure. That's whole the point. They saw the cases spreading after they shut down the apparent source on Jan 1. They knew it was human transmissible because the only way new cases could be created at that point was human transmission.