High-level officials within the Chinese Communist Party were kept in the dark about the dangers of the coronavirus in the first weeks of the outbreak by local officials who feared being retaliated against, according to a report.
An internal report by US intelligence agencies found that officials in the city of Wuhan and Hubei Province, where the virus originated, kept critical information from the party’s leaders, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.
The local officials feared reprisals and didn’t want to disrupt a local annual Communist Party meeting taking place in January.
Despite the actions of the local officials, the report supports accusations made by President Trump that Communist Party officials kept information about the spread of the coronavirus under wraps and withheld data from the World Health Organization.
Still, the conduct of the local Chinese officials was a crucial factor in the coronavirus spreading outside mainland China, the report said.
The findings give Chinese President Xi Jinping some wiggle room over his handling of COVID-19 and suggest that perhaps top Chinese officials did not purposely lie about the spread.
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