Chinese medics say they were told to cover up COVID deaths, evidence of human transmission
The Chinese communist government ordered healthcare workers to conceal the deaths of coronavirus victims, and hide the fact of human-to-human transmission at least a month before China went public with the information to the World Health organization, according to Chinese medics interviewed in a new ITV documentary titled Outbreak: The Virus That Shook the World.
The documentary, set to air Tuesday on Sky TV tells “the dramatic global story of the first year of COVID-19, tracing the devastation caused by the spread of the virus across four continents.”
Featuring medical professionals based in Wuhan, the interviewees claim to have discovered that people had died from the virus as early as December 2019, but were told by Chinese authorities “not to tell the truth.” The healthcare professionals say that some local officials wanted to cancel January's Lunar New Year celebrations that ultimately led to further spread of the disease, but were denied in order to “present a harmonious and prosperous society.”
“We all felt there shouldn’t be any doubt about human-to-human transmission,” said one of the interviewed medics. “We knew this virus transmitted from human-to-human. But when we attended a hospital meeting, we were told not to speak out. The provincial leaders told the hospitals not to tell the truth,” said another, reports the Daily Wire.
“As late as January 12, the WHO was saying there was ‘no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission’ and said it was ‘reassured of the quality’ of China’s response,” the Daily Mail reported. “By January 21, when the WHO issued its first situation report on the virus, the disease had infected at least 278 people in China and spread to three other countries.”
The WHO has commissioned a panel to investigate the origins of the coronavirus that first appeared in China, and has already found that public health measures could have been applied more forcefully by its health authorities as early as January 2020.
Despite the forceful language used by the WHO, the organization initially praised Chinese efforts to contain the disease, and went so far as to regurgitate false claims that there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission of the coronavirus.
“Throughout January, the World Health Organization publicly praised China for what it called a speedy response to the new coronavirus. It repeatedly thanked the Chinese government for sharing the genetic map of the virus ‘immediately,’ and said its work and commitment to transparency were ‘very impressive, and beyond words,’” reported the Associated Press in June 2020.
In response, the Deputy Director-General of Taiwan’s Centers for Disease Control condemned China’s handling of the outbreak. Taiwan was the first country to blow the whistle on the true dangers posed by COVID-19.
“The very early outbreak management was just a mess, a failure. 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,” said Dr. Yi-Chun Lo.
Taiwan asserts that it tried repeatedly to visit China to ascertain whether the virus was capable of human-to-human transmission.
Dr. Yin-Ching Chuang of Taiwan’s Infectious Diseases Prevention and Treatment Network said: “We asked a lot of questions, very unwillingly they finally came out and said limited human-to-human transmission can’t be ruled out,” he said. “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?”
2024 Student Journalism Conference
Applications are now open for The Democracy Fund's third annual Student Journalism Conference. This is a one-of-a-kind, all-expenses-paid opportunity for young aspiring journalists in Canada!
TDF Student Journalism Conference 2024Don't Get Censored
Big Tech is censoring us. Sign up so we can always stay in touch.
Don't Get Censored
Big Tech is censoring us. Sign up so we can always stay in touch.