Chinese doctor who diagnosed early Covid-19 cases in Wuhan says local officials covered up scale of outbreak
A disease control expert from China has confirmed that officials in Wuhan covered up the scale of the initial coronavirus outbreak in the region. The expert, Professor Yuen Kwok-yung, who visited the former coronavirus epicenter in January to help diagnose cases, in a statement to BBC said that local authorities destroyed physical evidence of the gravity of the spread there and gave "slow" response to clinical findings there.
"I do suspect that they have been doing some cover-up locally at Wuhan," the professor said. "The local officials who are supposed to immediately relay the information has not allowed this to be done as readily as it should." Bejing, since the onset of the viral Covid-19 outbreak, has been facing skepticism over the authenticity and transparency of its figures related to the novel coronavirus.
The 63-year-old microbiologist from Hong Kong had questioned the Chinese government's handling of the viral outbreak last month too, stating that the real COVID-19 infection number in the former virus ground zero Hubei could be 2.2 million, or 32 times the government's official toll, reports state. The professor and his University of Hong Kong team had announced their findings after analyzing samples from people in Hong Kong who had returned from the province. Chinese state media outlets, however, slammed the findings and questioned whether Yuen was assisting the United States to smear Beijing over the pandemic.
Professor Yuen was reportedly among the people who were involved in the early diagnosis and investigation of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan. He visited the city on January 17 on behalf of China's National Health Commission. Professor Yuen also accompanied Dr. Zhong Nanshan, the leader of Beijing's coronavirus expert team, and George Gao, the Chinese CDC head, during his exploratory trip to the initial virus epicenter. The professor's group was the one that officially confirmed that there was human-to-human transmission of the virus.
Professor Yuen and his team, during their recent study, collected a total of 452 blood samples of Hong Kong residents after they returned to the city from Hubei in early March. The study concluded that at least 17 of them — 3.8 percent — carried antibodies against the novel coronavirus. The team, after it applied the antibody rate to Hubei's entire population, concluded that nearly 2.2 million residents should have contracted the virus by early March. The team's study was published in an open-access journal, The Lancet Microbe.
The provincial government, however, reported a significantly lower rate, stating that a total of 67,802 had tested positive for the virus as of March 31. The region's latest official figure stands at 68,135. Considering Yuen's findings, the number of infected people is 32 times higher than the Hubei government's figures.
China's state-run newspaper The Global Times slammed the researchers' findings. The outlet reportedly questioned if Yuen was "the most powerful foreign aid" for the US, and suggested that he conducted the study in an attempt to help Washington. President Donald Trump's administration has consistently accused China of underreporting the numbers and scale of the coronavirus outbreak in the region.
Stanley Ng Chau-pei, a pro-Beijing politician in Hong Kong, also criticized the findings in a post on Facebook last week, writing: "If calculated like this, China has 1.4 billion people, so shouldn't there be 53 million infections? If the mainland people can still be so calm and carry on returning to work with such a shocking number, then it is not to demonize but deify the Communist Party."