Coronavirus: China concealed extent of outbreak, US intelligence says
- Classified report to White House concludes that Beijing has under-reported both total cases and deaths from disease, officials say
- Western officials have also cited Iran, Russia, Indonesia and North Korea as countries that are probably undercounting
China has concealed the extent of the coronavirus outbreak in its country, under-reporting both total cases and deaths it has suffered from the disease, the US intelligence community concluded in a classified report to the White House, according to three US officials.
The officials asked not to be identified because the report is secret and declined to detail its contents. But the thrust, they said, is that China’s public reporting on cases and deaths is intentionally incomplete. Two of the officials said the report concludes that China’s numbers are fake.
The report was received by the White House last week, one of the officials said.
The outbreak began in China’s Hubei province in late 2019, but the country has publicly reported only about 83,000 cases and 3,300 deaths. That compares to more than 190,000 cases and more than 4,000 deaths in the US, which has the largest publicly reported outbreak in the world.
Communications staff at the White House and Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
While China eventually imposed a strict lockdown beyond those of less autocratic nations, there has been considerable scepticism of China’s reported numbers, both outside and within the country.