The Australian Daily Telegraph (called the Saturday Telegraph for the Saturday edition) is a tabloid. They don't seem to have super-high journalistic standards. So far there's little reporting of the story in mainstream media.External Quote:
China deliberately suppressed or destroyed evidence of the coronavirus outbreak in an "assault on international transparency'' that cost tens of thousands of lives, according to a dossier prepared by concerned Western governments on the COVID-19 contagion.
The 15-page research document, obtained by The Saturday Telegraph, lays the foundation for the case of negligence being mounted against China.
It states that to the "endangerment of other countries" the Chinese government covered-up news of the virus by silencing or "disappearing" doctors who spoke out, destroying evidence of it in laboratories and refusing to provide live samples to international scientists who were working on a vaccine.
Senior members of the Australian intelligence community told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age a research document shared in political circles under the Five Eyes intelligence arrangement was mostly based on news reports and contained no material from intelligence gathering.
A 15-page "dossier" has been widely quoted by local and international media about China's alleged cover-up of the virus. Australian intelligence officials have since identified a research report which was based entirely on open source material. The officials said it was likely the reports were the same.