Thread by @joshmich

It is increasingly clear that Chinese government officials- locally in Wuhan and nationally in Beijing- sought to hide information and downplay the seriousness of the coronavirus outbreak in the critical first weeks of the pandemic.
nytimes.com/2020/08/19/wor…

Wuhan officials hid information from national authorities. A recent U.S. intelligence community assessment concluded "Officials in Beijing were kept in the dark for weeks about the potential devastation of the virus by local officials in central China."

At the same time "senior officials in Beijing, even as they were scrambling to pry data from officials in central China, played a role in obscuring the outbreak by withholding information from the World Health Organization."

In addition, a combination of the weak standing of China's CDC, a poorly implemented national hospital surveillance system, and local officials "intent on hiding bad news" meant Wuhan officials did an "end-run" around public health authorities.
wsj.com/articles/china…

In sum, while the technological, public health, and scientific advances in China have been considerable since the days of the original SARS, the political system and skewed incentives of officials remain serious challenges to rapid action on emerging infectious diseases.