A US intelligence report states that China has intentionally made up the number of coronavirus cases and deaths the country suffered.
According to an international news agency, three officials of the US intelligence community have said that China country faked the numbers of coronavirus cases and death toll on purpose.
“China’s public reporting on cases and deaths is intentionally incomplete,” the outlet reported. “Two of the officials said the report concludes that China’s numbers are fake.”
China has claimed to have under 83,000 cases and around 3,300 deaths as of Wednesday, which is less than the US, which as reported more than 200,000, or Italy with 110,000, or Spain with 102,000.
Wuhan has not reported any new cases recently, a rapid drop from the thousands it reported every day until mid-February, and the hundreds into early March.
The State Department immunologist on the Coronavirus Task Force Deborah Birx said on Tuesday that China’s data was interpreted by the medical community as: “This was serious, but smaller than anyone expected.”
Vice President Mike Pence recently told CNN: “I will be very candid with you and say that in mid-January the CDC was still assessing that the risk of the coronavirus to the American people was low.”
“The very first case, which was someone who had been in China — in late January around the 20th day of January,” Pence said. “The reality is that we could’ve been better off if China had been more forthcoming.”
China did not wait to impose a country wide lockdown after the outbreak in the city of Wuhan, in the Hubei province. People were barred people from leaving or entering Wuhan beginning on January 23 in a surprise middle-of-the-night announcement and expanded that to most of the province in the days following. Doubts around China’s numbers has swirled throughout the global crisis — and long lines of people waiting to collect the ashes of loved ones at funeral homes last week revived the debate.
In late January, China rushed to handle the spiraling number of infected people and test them.On some days, the country reported more new suspected cases — those who had symptoms but had not yet been tested — than confirmed ones.
Getting a complete and accurate picture of case numbers or death tolls as the outbreak happens is nearly impossible in any country. Since many infected cases are mild or asymptomatic, identifying cases of COVID-19 is harder than deaths.
