China downplayed its coronavirus outbreak in order to buy time to hoard medical supplies needed to respond to the pandemic, according to intelligence documents.
A four-page Department of Homeland Security report dated May 1 and obtained by the Associated Press on Sunday showed that U.S. officials believe Chinese leaders “intentionally concealed the severity” of the virus, including how contagious it is and how large the country’s outbreak was, from the rest of the world in January. The report strongly suggested that China did this while knowing how contagious and deadly the coronavirus was during the crucial weeks before it became a global pandemic.
The DHS analysis indicated that China increased imports of medical supplies and decreased exports while it was hiding the extent of the coronavirus and even attempted to cover up doing so by “denying there were export restrictions and obfuscating and delaying provision of its trade data.” The report also stated that China failed to notify the World Health Organization that the coronavirus “was a contagion” for most of January so it could purchase medical supplies abroad. Officials noted that the country’s trade data “shows that China likely stockpiled medical supplies for domestic use before its official notification to the World Health Organization that COVID-19 was contagious.”
The intelligence report stated that China increased its imports and decreased its exports of medical supplies beginning in early January. During that time, the nation increased its imports of surgical face masks by 278%, of surgical gowns by 72%, and of surgical gloves by 32%, according to details from ABC News and Politico. China also decreased its exports of medical supplies at the same time, including 45% fewer ventilators, 56% fewer intubator kits, 53% fewer thermometers, 58% fewer cotton balls and swabs, 48% fewer surgical gloves, 71% fewer surgical gowns, and 48% fewer surgical face masks.
The conclusions of the report were based on a 95% chance that China’s changes in imports and export behavior were not within the normal range.
China has faced criticism from President Trump, lawmakers, and public health experts for its coronavirus response and for failing to alert the world of the virus when it was first identified in Wuhan late last year. White House trade adviser Peter Navarro claimed last month that the country spent six weeks concealing the virus from the WHO while cornering the personal protective equipment market.
“During that period of time, that six-week interval when they were hiding this virus from the world, China went from a net exporter of personal protective equipment, they are the largest producer of that in the world, to a large net importer,” he said. “They basically went around and vacuumed up virtually all of the PPE around the world … and what that did was leave people in New York, Milan, and everywhere in-between defenseless when it came time to have that PPE.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo confirmed elements of the DHS report on Sunday during an interview with Martha Raddatz on This Week on ABC.
“I want to turn to China, with intelligence officials… saying that the Chinese government intentionally concealed the severity of COVID-19 from the international community in early January, while it stockpiled medical supplies. In terms of international concealing, I assume you think they did that intentionally to keep as many masks for themselves as possible,” Raddatz said. “Will there be some sort of retaliation?”
Pompeo replied that “you’ve got the facts just about right” and “we can confirm that the Chinese Communist Party did all that it could to make sure that the world didn’t learn in a timely fashion about what was taking place. There’s lots of evidence of that.
“It’s the way Communist parties operate,” he continued. “This is a classic Communist disinformation effort. That created enormous risk, and now you can see hundreds of thousands of people around the world, tens of thousands in the United States, have been harmed. President Trump is very clear. We’re going to hold those responsible accountable, and we’ll do so on a timeline that is our own.”
Trump has speculated that China may have unleashed the coronavirus due to a “mistake” and said he has seen evidence to give him a high degree of confidence that the coronavirus originated in a Wuhan laboratory. Pompeo said Sunday there is “enormous evidence” connecting the coronavirus to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. A senior intelligence official told the Washington Examiner that a majority of the U.S. Intelligence Community’s 17 spy agencies believe COVID-19 originated through an accidental escape from the lab.
As of Sunday, the world had seen nearly 3,500,000 cases of the COVID-19 virus and more than 246,000 related deaths.
