A trove of 117 documents leaked from the Chinese health system provides further confirmation of ongoing allegations that the Chinese government deliberately concealed the emergence of a new virus toward the end of 2019, and took steps to prevent the outside world from learning of the threat it posed.
The documents, taken from Hubei Province's Center for Disease Prevention and Control in China, were handed over to CNN by a man who described himself as a "Chinese healthcare worker."
Among the data included in the documents are the actual statistics for morbidity and mortality rates, as compared to the statistics released for international publication.
For example, on February 10, when China reported 2478 new coronavirus infections, the actual number of infections was 5918, more than double the official figure published.
Similarly, the number of deaths caused by the virus as reported from Hubei Province was also significantly lower than the number published. On March 7, the Chinese government reported 2,986 deaths associated with the epidemic, while the true number was actually 3456.
The documents also reveal that even when China did submit data to the rest of the world, it was delayed due to a number of factors, including the fact that toward the beginning of the epidemic, it took Chinese authorities an exceptionally long time to diagnose carriers – 23 days on average. It also took China a long time to increase the number of tests it was performing, due to a lack of personal protective equipment which was later rectified.
According to the documents, certain statistics were also suppressed entirely, including the fact that six healthcare workers in Hubei Province had died of coronavirus-related complications by February 10. Their deaths were never officially recorded.
The Trump administration has consistently accused both China and the World Health Organization of collaborating to hide the outbreak and the extent of the epidemic in its earliest days, causing a worldwide delay in attempts to prevent the spread of the coronavirus which almost certainly cost lives. On Tuesday, Israel’s outgoing deputy director-general of the Health Ministry, Prof. Itamar Grotto, told media that he spoke with the head of the WHO in January, 2020, and that already then, the organization was aware that China was attempting to conceal the extent of the pandemic.