SIX million Covid victims could be alive today if China had not attempted to cover up the outbreak, a study has claimed.
It says Beijing’s public health authorities cracked the virus’s genetic code at least five days before the world knew of the threat.
A study says that China’s public health authorities cracked Covid’s genetic code at least five days before the world knew of the threatGetty
Professor Bryce Nickels of Biosafety now pinpointed the country’s ‘efforts to hide critical information’Supplied
People began falling ill in Wuhan in November 2019.
China identified the genome sequence on December 26 that year.
But the World Health Organisation heard of the outbreak on December 31.
And it did not get vital info on human transmission for another three weeks.
China went on to even deny human-to-human spread was possible to the WHO in mid-January.
Seven million deaths globally from Covid could have been reduced by 95 per cent if China had acted sooner, it is said.
Instead, Beijing stands accused of cracking down on officials who shared life-saving data and silencing whistleblowing medics.
New evidence exposes the scale of the cover-up of the Wuhan outbreak – which China insists did not leak from one of its secret bio labs.
Prof Bryce Nickels of Biosafety Now pinpointed “disturbing . . . efforts to hide critical information.”
