Early in 2020, on the same day that a frightening new illness officially got the name Covid-19, a team of scientists from the US and China released critical data showing how quickly the virus was spreading, and who was dying. Within days, though, the researchers quietly withdrew the paper, which was replaced online by a message telling scientists not to cite it.
What is now clear is the study was not removed because of faulty research. Instead, it was withdrawn at the direction of Chinese health officials amid a crackdown on science. “It was so hard to get any information out of China,” said one of the authors, Ira Longini, of University of Florida, who described the back story first time in a recent interview. “There was so much covered up, and so much hidden. ”
That the Chinese government muzzled scientists, hindered international investigations and censored online discussion of the pandemic is well documented. But Beijing’s stranglehold on information goes far deeper than even many researchers are aware of, a NYT investigation found.
Under pressure from their government, Chinese scientists have withheld data, withdrawn genetic sequences from public databases and altered details in journal submissions. Western journal editors enabled those efforts by agreeing to those edits, a review of over adozen retracted papers found. Groups, including the World Health Organization, have given credence to muddled data and inaccurate timelines.
The original version of the2020 paper can still be found online with some digging. But the campaign starved doctors and policymakers of critical information about the virus. It bred mistrust of science in Europe and the US, as health officials cited papers from China that were then retracted.
Such censorship spilled into public view recently, when an international group of scientists discovered genetic sequence data that Chinese researchers had collected from a Wuhan market in January 2020 but withheld for three years.
The sequences showed raccoon dogshad deposited genetic signatures in the same place that genetic material from the virus was left. At a news conference this month, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention called such criticism “intolerable. ”
Beijing controls and shapes information as a matter of course. But some of the censorship changed the timeline of early infections, as the government faced criticism over whether it responded to the outbreak quickly enough.
On February 6, 2020, the Chinese internet lit up with the death of Li Wenliang, a Wuhan doctor who had beenpunished for warning about the outbreak before falling ill himself. People sensed that officials had withheld lifesaving information. Researchers confirmed that the virus had been spreading for weeks from human to human, a fact that Chinese officials had dismissed.
The Chinese government reacted by tightening online censorship and wresting control of research. Soon, Chinese researchers were asking journals to retract their work. On March 9, scientists from top Chinese laboratories published a paper about how the coronavirus might be mutating.
The following day, China’s ministry of education ordered universities to submit research topics to the government task force for approval. The journal retractions continued.
The censorship helped the government tell a story. “China emerged from the pandemic as an early winner,” said Yanzhong Huang, a global health expert. “They started to present a new narrative, in terms of not just the origin, but also of the government’s role in responding to the pandemic. ”
Chinese scientists ignored requests for years to release information about swabs taken from surfaces at the Wuhan market. That refusal has hindered efforts to determine how the pandemic began.’
The WHO has only added to confusion. After errors were found in a March 2021 report, an agency spokes man promised that officials would correct the mistakes. Two years later, they have not. The flawed report remains online, painting an inaccurate timeline of the earliest known cases
What is now clear is the study was not removed because of faulty research. Instead, it was withdrawn at the direction of Chinese health officials amid a crackdown on science. “It was so hard to get any information out of China,” said one of the authors, Ira Longini, of University of Florida, who described the back story first time in a recent interview. “There was so much covered up, and so much hidden. ”
That the Chinese government muzzled scientists, hindered international investigations and censored online discussion of the pandemic is well documented. But Beijing’s stranglehold on information goes far deeper than even many researchers are aware of, a NYT investigation found.
Under pressure from their government, Chinese scientists have withheld data, withdrawn genetic sequences from public databases and altered details in journal submissions. Western journal editors enabled those efforts by agreeing to those edits, a review of over adozen retracted papers found. Groups, including the World Health Organization, have given credence to muddled data and inaccurate timelines.
The original version of the2020 paper can still be found online with some digging. But the campaign starved doctors and policymakers of critical information about the virus. It bred mistrust of science in Europe and the US, as health officials cited papers from China that were then retracted.
Such censorship spilled into public view recently, when an international group of scientists discovered genetic sequence data that Chinese researchers had collected from a Wuhan market in January 2020 but withheld for three years.
The sequences showed raccoon dogshad deposited genetic signatures in the same place that genetic material from the virus was left. At a news conference this month, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention called such criticism “intolerable. ”
Beijing controls and shapes information as a matter of course. But some of the censorship changed the timeline of early infections, as the government faced criticism over whether it responded to the outbreak quickly enough.
On February 6, 2020, the Chinese internet lit up with the death of Li Wenliang, a Wuhan doctor who had beenpunished for warning about the outbreak before falling ill himself. People sensed that officials had withheld lifesaving information. Researchers confirmed that the virus had been spreading for weeks from human to human, a fact that Chinese officials had dismissed.
The Chinese government reacted by tightening online censorship and wresting control of research. Soon, Chinese researchers were asking journals to retract their work. On March 9, scientists from top Chinese laboratories published a paper about how the coronavirus might be mutating.
The following day, China’s ministry of education ordered universities to submit research topics to the government task force for approval. The journal retractions continued.
The censorship helped the government tell a story. “China emerged from the pandemic as an early winner,” said Yanzhong Huang, a global health expert. “They started to present a new narrative, in terms of not just the origin, but also of the government’s role in responding to the pandemic. ”
Chinese scientists ignored requests for years to release information about swabs taken from surfaces at the Wuhan market. That refusal has hindered efforts to determine how the pandemic began.’
The WHO has only added to confusion. After errors were found in a March 2021 report, an agency spokes man promised that officials would correct the mistakes. Two years later, they have not. The flawed report remains online, painting an inaccurate timeline of the earliest known cases