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U.S. Intelligence — China faked coronavirus numbers

According to Bloomberg, the intelligence report was delivered to the White House last week, and according to three officials who asked not to be identified because the report is secret, China’s public reporting of coronavirus cases was “intentionally incomplete” and that its numbers were fake.

The outbreak began in China’s Hubei Province in December 2019, yet Beijing has reported that there were only about 82,000 cases and 3,300 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. This compares to more than 189,000 coronavirus cases and more than 4,000 deaths in the United States which now has the largest publicly reported outbreak in the world.

The White House and the Chinese embassy in Washington didn’t immediately respond to Bloomberg’s requests for comment. And at a White House press briefing on Wednesday, Trump said that “we have not received” any intelligence reports showing that “China underreported its coronavirus numbers.”

Trump did say that Beijing’s tally appeared “to be a little bit on the light side, and I’m being nice when I say that, relative to what we witnessed and what was reported.” So, yes, possibly Trump does know about the Intelligence report.

Vice President Mike Pence said Wednesday on CNN: “The reality is that we could have been better off if China had been more forthcoming. What appears evident now is that long before the world learned in December that China was dealing with this, and maybe as much as a month earlier than that, that the outbreak was real in China.”

Passengers arrive at the railway station in Wuhan  China's central Hubei province  after travel...

Passengers arrive at the railway station in Wuhan, China's central Hubei province, after travel restrictions into the city were eased following two months of lockdown
HECTOR RETAMAL, AFP


Hiding the real truth about COVID-19
One clue to back up the fake numbers put out by China was the number of times the government changed their way of reporting the illness. The Chinese government repeatedly changed its methodology to track cases.

Bloomberg is reporting that Chinese officials for weeks excluded asymptomatic people from the positive-cases count and revised that measure only on Tuesday, adding more than 1,500 cases to its total, reports Business Insider.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been skeptical of the data coming out of China from the start, repeatedly accusing China of covering up information about its coronavirus cases and of spreading misinformation. China was “the first country to know about the risk to the world from this virus,” Pompeo said at a news briefing last week, “and they repeatedly delayed sharing that information with the globe.”

“This data set matters,” Pompeo reiterated on Tuesday, adding that the strategy for combatting the virus “depends on the ability to have confidence and information about what has actually transpired.”

China is not the only country with a lack of transparency in reporting their number of coronavirus cases and the number of deaths. Iran, Russia, Indonesia and especially North Korea come to mind, according to Western officials. North Korea claims to not have a single case of COVID-19. Saudi Arabia and Egypt may also be playing down their numbers.

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We are deeply saddened to announce the passing of our dear friend Karen Graham, who served as Editor-at-Large at Digital Journal. She was 78 years old. Karen's view of what is happening in our world was colored by her love of history and how the past influences events taking place today. Her belief in humankind's part in the care of the planet and our environment has led her to focus on the need for action in dealing with climate change. It was said by Geoffrey C. Ward, "Journalism is merely history's first draft." Everyone who writes about what is happening today is indeed, writing a small part of our history.

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