WASHINGTON
(AP) — U.S. officials believe China covered up the extent of the
coronavirus outbreak — and how contagious the disease is — to stock up
on medical supplies needed to respond to it, intelligence documents
show.
Chinese
leaders “intentionally concealed the severity” of the pandemic from the
world in early January, according to a four-page Department of Homeland
Security intelligence report dated May 1 and obtained by The Associated
Press. The revelation comes as the Trump administration has intensified
its criticism of China, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying
Sunday that that country was responsible for the spread of disease and
must be held accountable.
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The
sharper rhetoric coincides with administration critics saying the
government’s response to the virus was slow and inadequate. President
Donald Trump’s political opponents have accused him of lashing out at
China, a geopolitical foe but critical U.S. trade partner, in an attempt
to deflect criticism at home.
Not
classified but marked “for official use only,” the DHS analysis states
that, while downplaying the severity of the coronavirus, China increased
imports and decreased exports of medical supplies. It attempted to
cover up doing so by “denying there were export restrictions and
obfuscating and delaying provision of its trade data,” the analysis
states.
The
report also says China held off informing the World Health Organization
that the coronavirus “was a contagion” for much of January so it could
order medical supplies from abroad — and that its imports of face masks
and surgical gowns and gloves increased sharply.
Those
conclusions are based on the 95% probability that China’s changes in
imports and export behavior were not within normal range, according to
the report.
China
informed the WHO of the outbreak on Dec. 31. It contacted the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control on Jan. 3 and publicly identified the
pathogen as a novel coronavirus on Jan. 8.
Chinese
officials muffled doctors who warned about the virus early on and
repeatedly downplayed the threat of the outbreak. However, many of the
Chinese government’s missteps appear to have been due to bureaucratic
hurdles, tight controls on information, and officials hesitant to report
bad news. There is no public evidence to suggest it was an intentional
plot to buy up the world’s medical supplies.
In
a tweet on Sunday, the president appeared to blame U.S. intelligence
officials for not making clearer sooner just how dangerous a potential
coronavirus outbreak could be. Trump has been defensive over whether he
failed to act after receiving early warnings from intelligence officials
and others about the coronavirus and its potential impact.
“Intelligence
has just reported to me that I was correct, and that they did NOT bring
up the CoronaVirus subject matter until late into January, just prior
to my banning China from the U.S.,” Trump wrote without citing
specifics. “Also, they only spoke of the Virus in a very
non-threatening, or matter of fact, manner.”
Trump
had previously speculated that China may have unleashed the coronavirus
due to some kind of horrible “mistake.” His intelligence agencies say
they are still examining a notion put forward by the president and aides
that the pandemic may have resulted from an accident at a Chinese lab.
Speaking
Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Pompeo said he had no reason to believe
that the virus was deliberately spread. But he added, “Remember, China
has a history of infecting the world, and they have a history of running
substandard laboratories.”
“These
are not the first times that we’ve had a world exposed to viruses as a
result of failures in a Chinese lab,” Pompeo said. “And so, while the
intelligence community continues to do its work, they should continue to
do that, and verify so that we are certain, I can tell you that there
is a significant amount of evidence that this came from that laboratory
in Wuhan.”
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The
secretary of state appeared to be referring to previous outbreaks of
respiratory viruses, like SARS, which started in China. His remark may
be seen as offensive in China. Still, Pompeo repeated the same assertion
hours later, via a tweet Sunday afternoon.
Experts
say the virus arose naturally in bats, and make it clear that they
believe it wasn’t man-made. Many virologists say the chance that the
outbreak was caused by a lab accident is very low, though scientists are
still working to determine a point at which it may have jumped from
animals to humans.
Beijing
has repeatedly pushed back on U.S. accusations that the outbreak was
China’s fault, pointing to many missteps made by American officials in
their own fight against the outbreak. China’s public announcement on
Jan. 20 that the virus was transmissible from person to person left the
U.S. nearly two months to prepare for the pandemic, during which the
U.S. government failed to bolster medical supplies and deployed flawed
testing kits.
“The
U.S. government has ignored the facts, diverted public attention and
engaged in buck-passing in an attempt to shirk its responsibility for
incompetence in the fight against the epidemic,” Chinese Ministry of
Foreign Affairs spokesman Geng Shuang said Friday.
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