Associated Press: China deliberately hid information about coronavirus

The actions of the Chinese authorities last January, when she welcomed Beijing’s fast reaction to the outbreak of coronavirus, did not deserve greetings, the Associated Press agency believes. There was no "timely reaction" of Beijing to coronavirus. There was no commitment to China, which was written in January WHO in January. In fact, it was China’s authorities that restrained the dissemination of information in which the world so needed and, above all, the World Health Organization. The Associated Press (AP) agency devoted its publication to this issue.

While China hid a growing danger, not wanting to share laboratory information about the features of the virus, in three laboratories of different countries, coronavirus was completely decoded.

Strict control over the dissemination of information and the lack of competition within the Chinese state healthcare system, judging by dozens of interviews and documentary sources, earned convictions at that time, emphasizes AP.

Government laboratories in China published information about the genome only after another laboratory, ahead of the government, published this information on a specialized website for virology on January 11. But even after this, the Chinese authorities did not dare to publish information about the virus within two weeks. It was during this period that detailed information about patients and cases of infection (according to the protocols of closed meetings of WHO) was most necessary. If this information is available, this may help to significantly reduce the deadly coronavirus effect or slow down the speed of its spread, the publication on the AP website says .

The official representatives of the WHO publicly praised China, probably to appease Beijing and get the necessary information in return - in any case, the AP agency makes such an assumption, referring to the records received from its sources. But in private conversations, high -ranking staff employees complained that the Chinese side does not provide sufficient information about the transfer of the virus from person to person. Chinese specialists with WHO and conclusions regarding the risk that the new coronavirus to the rest of the world were not shared.

The lack of information was complained by the American epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhov at one of the closed meetings. She insisted that without information it was impossible to plan measures to counteract the coronavirus.