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The conclusions advanced by CNN are based on the analysis of internal documents of the health authorities of the Asian country. In total, there are 117 pages leaked from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Hubei Province, where the first cases of covid-19 were diagnosed.
In a report marked with the words “internal document, keep confidential,” local health officials listed a total of 5,918 new cases, detected on February 10, more than double the official public number of confirmed cases that day.
This figure was never revealed at the time, as China’s accounting system seemed, in the chaos of the first weeks of the pandemic, to minimize the severity of the epidemic.
A report produced in early March found that it took authorities on average 23 days to confirm the diagnosis of patients who already had symptoms.
Test errors also meant that most of the infected people received negative results on January 10.
Initial measures to contain the outbreak were hampered by a lack of funds and staff and a complex bureaucracy, which complicated China’s emergency system, according to internal audits to which CNN had access.
CNN also said that a severe flu outbreak occurred in Hubei province in early December, which had not previously been reported.
The documents, which cover an incomplete period between October 2019 and April of this year, reveal what appears to be an “inflexible health system limited by top-down organized bureaucracy and rigid, inadequate procedures. to address the crisis, “CNN stressed.
“At various critical moments in the initial phase of the pandemic, the documents point to obvious errors and a pattern of institutional failures,” he added.
The Chinese government has vehemently rejected allegations by the United States and other Western governments of deliberately withholding information about the virus.
Last June, the Chinese State Council said that the Chinese government has always published information on the outbreak in a “timely, open and transparent manner”.
“By making a total effort to contain the virus, China has also acted with a great sense of responsibility towards humanity, its people, posterity and the international community. It provided information on covid-19 in a completely professional and efficient manner and released reliable and detailed information as soon as possible on a regular basis, “he added.
According to CNN, although the documents provide no evidence of a deliberate attempt to hide information, they reveal several inconsistencies about what authorities believed was happening and what was publicly revealed.
Today, it marks a year since the first known patient developed symptoms of the disease in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province, according to a study published in the Lancet medical journal.
The revelations come at a time when the United States and the European Union are lobbying China to fully cooperate with a World Health Organization (WHO) investigation into the origins of the virus, which has already infected more than 60 million. of people and killed 1.46 million in Worldwide.
To date, however, access by international experts to medical records and hospital data in Hubei has been limited. WHO said last week it had received “guarantees from the Chinese government that a field trip” would be granted as part of its investigation.
The files were submitted to CNN by whistleblowers who requested anonymity, according to the television network. Sources say they work in the Chinese health system and are patriots who want to expose censored facts and pay tribute to colleagues who have spoken previously.
The documents were verified by six independent experts who examined the veracity of their content, according to CNN.
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