Wuhan medics told to lie about human-to-human transmission of Covid-19 before China told world: 'Just a mess'
A number of Chinese medics were reportedly secretly filmed admitting they knew how lethal the coronavirus was when it first broke out in Wuhan but were forced to lie about it by state authorities. According to several medical professionals in Wuhan, they were well aware of the growing virus deaths as early as December 2019. However, China first informed the WHO of a COVID-19 fatality only around mid-January, the Daily Mail reported. Meanwhile, they also noted how the virus could be transmitted by humans. Hospitals, however, were reportedly told "not to tell the truth" and the CCP regime rejected calls to scrap Lunar New Year celebrations in order to "present a harmonious and prosperous society," per the report.
According to the British newspaper, the secret footage is set to be aired tonight in an ITV documentary titled 'Outbreak: The Virus That Shook The World' -- which delves into China's repeated denials that it covered up the outbreak in its earliest days.
A WHO-backed panel admitted on Monday that Beijing was too slow to respond to the outbreak. This comes just days after the US state department published a factsheet indicating the deadly contagion could have accidentally leaked from a Wuhan research lab. That said, the video also adds credibility to growing claims that China was not transparent with the world about the early stages of the outbreak, thereby allowing it to snowball into a global pandemic. WHO was first informed by China of 27 cases of the novel disease on December 31, 2019. No deaths were reported until as late as mid-January. However, a citizen journalist secretly filmed Chinese medics saying they knew well beforehand the devastating potential of the virus. "Actually, at the end of December or beginning of January, the relative of someone I know died of this virus," one medic recalled. "Many of those living with him were also infected, including people I know."
On January 12, WHO declared there was "no clear evidence of human to human transmission" and said it was "reassured of the quality" of China's response to the outbreak. However, one Chinese medic said there was a general consensus among medical professionals that "there shouldn't be any doubt about human to human transmission."
Instead, doctors were reportedly "told not to speak out" about the true nature of the contagion. "We knew this virus transmitted from human to human. But when we attended a hospital meeting, we were told not to speak out," one medic alleged. "The provincial leaders told the hospitals not to tell the truth."
When the WHO issued its first report on the virus on January 21, COVID-19 had infected at least 278 people in China alone and had spread to three other countries already. Authorities knew the risks of Lunar New Year festivities as crowds could "accelerate the spread of the virus," medics further alleged. "People suggested at the city level that it shouldn't go ahead, but it did because such an event would present a harmonious and prosperous society," one said.
Considering, a number of leading virologists support the testimony by Wuhan medical professionals. "The very early outbreak management was just a mess, a failure," said Dr. Yi-Chun Lo, the deputy director-general of the Centers for Disease Control in Taiwan. "I think the pandemic could have been avoided at the beginning if China was transparent about the outbreak and was quick to provide necessary information to the world."
Dr. Yin-Ching Chuang, from the Infectious Diseases Prevention and Treatment Network in Taiwan, told ITV that he and his team had desperately tried to find out whether there was human-to-human transmission of the virus. "We asked a lot of questions, very unwillingly they finally came out and said limited human-to-human transmission can't be ruled out," Chuang noted. "What was the scale of infection? How big was this epidemic? How many patients were affected? We didn't know. Only they knew this. Why didn't China inform other countries of this human-to-human matter earlier?" he added.
Meanwhile, Beijing has maintained that it provided timely information once facts were established and repeatedly rejected claims of a cover-up.