Before Wuhan authorities publicly announced the outbreak of unexplained pneumonia, private institutions had already detected a SARS-like novel coronavirus. Yet the Chinese government ordered specimens to be destroyed or sent to designated agencies and prohibited independent publication of test results. False reports regarding infections among medical workers also delayed warnings of human-to-human transmission.

March 2, 2020
What Did the Chinese Government Conceal at the Outset? Specimen Disposal Orders and False Reports on Human-to-Human Transmission
The following is from an article published in the Sankei Shimbun on February 28.
China concealed information in the early stage of the outbreak.
False reports were also made regarding human-to-human transmission.
This was reported by local media.
Beijing, by Yoshiaki Nishimi.
By February 28, Chinese media had reported that before the Wuhan city authorities in Hubei Province announced the outbreak of “pneumonia of unknown cause” at the end of last year, a private institution that had received specimens from a hospital in Wuhan had detected “a novel coronavirus similar to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS.”
The Chinese government issued notices to the relevant institutions instructing them not to publish their investigation results.
According to the electronic edition of the Chinese magazine Caixin, a genetic research institution in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, analyzed genetic information from specimens collected from patients in Wuhan in late December and detected a virus similar to SARS.
On December 27, it provided the data to the government-affiliated Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences.
Several other private and public institutions had also completed their analyses by around January 2.
However, on January 3, the Chinese government notified each institution that had examined the specimens to either destroy them immediately or send them to designated agencies.
It prohibited independent publication of test results, calling them “special public resources.”
Only on January 9 did the authorities announce that “an expert team had detected the novel coronavirus by the night of January 7.”
Meanwhile, according to the electronic edition of Caijing, one member of an expert team sent to Wuhan from January 8 testified that, at the time, each hospital falsely reported during the investigation that there were no infected medical workers.
Because of this, the expert team was unable to warn of the occurrence of human-to-human transmission.
It was not until January 20 that the head of the Chinese government’s expert group acknowledged human-to-human transmission.
What this article shows is far too serious.
Before Wuhan publicly announced the outbreak of pneumonia of unknown cause, a SARS-like novel virus had already been detected.
Multiple institutions had already completed analyses.
Yet the Chinese government, rather than informing the world, ordered that the specimens be destroyed or sent to designated agencies.
It prohibited independent publication of the test results, calling them “special public resources.”
If this is not concealment, what is it?
Furthermore, because false reports were made that there were no infected medical workers, the warning of human-to-human transmission was delayed.
It was on January 20 that the head of the Chinese government’s expert group finally acknowledged it.
What happened during that interval?
The virus spread from Wuhan to all of China, and then to the world.
This is not merely a delay in the initial response.
It is a question of state information control and concealment bringing about a global disaster.
Japanese media such as the Asahi Shimbun and NHK should report this fact thoroughly.
What did the Chinese government know?
When did it know it?
What did it conceal?
What did it prevent from being made public?
That is the very core of the new pneumonia crisis.
Yet in Japan, as usual, reporting that reduces the issue to criticism of the Abe administration is rampant.
The public is being led into shallow arguments about Japan’s testing system, or about how South Korea’s testing system is supposedly advanced.
But that is not where the world’s question should be directed.
The question is what China, the source of the outbreak, concealed at the initial stage.
The question is how many lives and how much economic damage were lost because of that concealment.
The question is who will take responsibility, and how.
That is what must be asked.
On January 3, the Chinese government notified each institution that had examined the specimens to either destroy them immediately or send them to designated agencies.
It prohibited independent publication of test results, calling them “special public resources.”
The essence of this entire problem is condensed in that one sentence.
It calls information a public resource, yet in reality it does not inform either its own people or the world.
The state monopolizes information and seals away inconvenient truths.
As a result, people throughout the world suffer.
This is the essence of the Chinese Communist Party’s dictatorial regime.