美国有线电视新闻网CNN的一篇最新报道显示，中国政府在疫情初期的低效和对信息的管控最终造成病毒扩散向全球。
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CNN exclusive: Vast trove of leaked documents shows China underreported Covid-19 numbers, took weeks to diagnose new cases and didn’t disclose a December flu spike in Hubei
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/30/asia/wuhan-china-covid-intl/index.html?utm_medium=social&utm_content=2020-11-30T22%3A07%3A11&utm_term=link&utm_source=fbCNNi&fbclid=IwAR1E363nBvL80NlbpjcPKwx8KIdHu8EMIW3RsGoA0x4tnohpMQFrb0Jl8KE
CNN獨家報導：大量洩露的文件顯示，中國漏報了Covid-19數字，花了數週時間診斷新病例，並未透露湖北12月的流感高峰
...Li, 34, later contracted the disease. His condition quickly worsened and in the early morning of February 7 he died, resulting in almost unprecedented levels of anger and outrage across mainland China's heavily censored internet.
It is not clear to what extent the central government was aware of the actions taking place in Hubei at that time, or how much information was being shared and with whom. The documents offer no indication that authorities in Beijing were directing the local decision-making process.
However, Mertha, the JHU academic, said the mismatch between the higher internal and lower public figures on the February death toll "appeared to be a deception, for unsurprising reasons."
However, Mertha, the JHU academic, said the mismatch between the higher internal and lower public figures on the February death toll "appeared to be a deception, for unsurprising reasons."
"China had an image to protect internationally, and lower-ranking officials had a clear incentive to under-report -- or to show their superiors that they were under-reporting -- to outside eyes," he said.
Conversely, however, the leaked documents also provide something of a defense of China's overall handling of the virus. The reports show that in the early stages of the pandemic, China faced the same problems of accounting, testing, and diagnosis that still haunt many Western democracies even now -- issues compounded by Hubei encountering an entirely new virus.
Similarly, no mention is made by officials of a so-called laboratory leak, or that the virus was man-made, as some critics, including top US officials, have claimed without evidence. There is one mention of sub-par facilities at a bacterial and toxic species preservation center, though the point is not elaborated on, nor is its significance made clear.
China and its healthcare workers were under immense strain as the outbreak took hold, said Yang, from the Council of Foreign Relations.
"They had a massive run on the medical system. They were overwhelmed. There was truly despair among medical professionals by the end of January, because they were extremely overworked and they were also enormously discouraged by the high number of deaths that were occurring with a disease they had not treated previously," he added.
Hubei, which lags far behind Beijing, Shanghai and other major Chinese administrative divisions in terms of GDP per capita, was the first region to confront a virus that would go on to confound many of the world's most powerful countries.
Schaffner, from Vanderbilt University, said many of the comments in the documents might have been made in the US, "where, over the past 15 to 20 years, at particularly the state and the local level, public health funding has become constrained."
The documents show health care officials had no comprehension as to the magnitude of the impending disaster.
Nowhere in the files is it indicated that officials believed the virus would become a global pandemic.
Tuesday marks exactly 12 months since the first patient in Wuhan started showing symptoms, according to the Lancet study. The death toll and number of people infected by the virus, now known to the world as Covid-19 and impacting the lives across the planet, continues to grow, day on day.
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What happened in Wuhan hospitals?
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