Wuhan doctors admit they were told to lie about severity of COVID-19
Chinese doctors in Wuhan have been secretly filmed admitting to knowing how serious coronavirus was at the start of the outbreak, but were ordered to lie by authorities.
There is growing evidence the Chinese Communist Party misled the global community in the early stages of the pandemic, a new documentary by UK broadcaster ITV called Outbreak: The Virus That Shook The World, has claimed.
China informed the World Health Organisation (WHO) of the first 27 cases of COVID-19 on December 31, 2019.
However they did not report any deaths until mid-January.
But senior doctors in Wuhan were secretly filmed by a citizen journalist, and said they knew about the deaths as early as December.
“We all felt there shouldn’t have been any doubt about human-to-human transmission,” one doctor said in the footage.
“Actually, at the end of December or beginning of January, the relative of someone I know died of this virus. Many of those living with him were also infected including people I know.”
Another doctor said: “We knew the virus transmitted from human to human, but when we attended a hospital meeting we were told not to speak out. Provincial government leaders told the hospitals not to tell the truth.”
The doctors claimed that authorities knew the January Lunar New Year celebrations would accelerate the spread of the virus.
However they allowed the festivities to go ahead anyway in order to “present a harmonious and prosperous society”.
“They shouldn’t have allowed any gatherings,” one said.
“The provincial and local governments knew the threat but they continued to allow crowds.”
WHO infamously tweeted on January 14 about the virus: “Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission.”
Taiwanese experts interviewed by the program backed up the Wuhan doctors’ testimony.
Dr Yin-Ching Chuang from the country’s Infectious Diseases Prevention and Treatment Network said his team struggled to get an answer on whether the virus was spread through hand-to-hand transmission.
After they were granted permission to travel to China, the truth finally emerged in a meeting.
“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?”
Nationals backbencher Matt Canavan has since accused Beijing of having “something to hide” and said it vindicated the Morrison Government’s calls for transparency.
“That’s why the federal government’s always been consistent in calling for a proper, transparent inquiry (on the origins of COVID-19),” he told Today.
“The question has to be asked – if China has nothing to hide here, why they are going to these sort of lengths to hide things?”
The prevailing theory as to how coronavirus began, is that it originated in bats and jumped to humans during a “wet market” that sold and butchered exotic animals.
China, however, has begun pushing the theory that the virus originated overseas and arrived in Wuhan through imported frozen food products.
The countries being accused include Europe, South America and even Australia.