During the 2003 SARS pandemic, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) used its stranglehold on journalists and dissidents in China to hide information and obfuscate the source of the outbreak. CCP leaders failed to inform the World Health Organization (WHO) about the virus for four months. In the wake of this malfeasance, the world demanded reforms to the International Health Regulations that govern how countries are required to handle public health emergencies. Today, it has become clear that the CCP failed to heed these lessons. The ongoing pandemic is a tragic second chapter to their mishandling of the 2003 SARS outbreak.
There are still many unanswered questions as to the origins of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and the root of the global pandemic. Almost daily, new information comes out of China and elsewhere showing the scale of CCP efforts to hide and coverup the outbreak.This interim report is an effort to put the information that is publicly available into context, define what questions regarding the virus and the response are still outstanding, and provide recommendations on how to improve the global response moving forward. This report is focused on the early phases of the pandemic, prior to the declaration of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on January 30, 2020. It will be updated and expanded in the weeks and months ahead, but certain facts are established.
It is beyond doubt that the CCP actively engaged in a cover-up designed to obfuscate data, hide relevant public health information, and suppress doctors and journalists who attempted to warn the world.They deliberately, and repeatedly, disregarded their obligations under the 2005 International Health Regulations (IHR). Senior CCP leaders, including CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping, knew a pandemic was ongoing weeks before it was announced. By responding in a transparent and responsible manner, the CCP could have supported the global public health response and shared information with the world about how to handle the virus. It is likely the ongoing pandemic could have been prevented had they done so, saving hundreds of thousands of lives and the world from an economic meltdown…
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