THIS IS A VERY IMPORTANT THREAD: US intelligence agencies have told the White House that Chinese government itself does not know the extent of the coronavirus and has no better idea than the rest of the world.

Midlevel bureaucrats in the city of Wuhan, where virus originated, and elsewhere in China have been lying about infection rates, testing and death counts, frightened that if they report numbers that are too high they will be punished, lose their position or be jailed.

CIA in particular has been warning White House since at least early February that China has vastly understated its coronavirus infections and that its count could not be relied upon as countries compiles predictive models to fight the virus.

US intelligence warns that getting a more accurate count of the Chinese rate of infection and deaths from the virus has worldwide public health implications when there is such uncertainty over the virus, its speed of transmission and other fundamentals.

Chinese totals critical for better understanding of how Covid-19 will hit other countries in the months ahead and effectiveness of countermeasures like social distancing. No idea where this now leaves the Imperial model, which used Chinese figures and has guided UK policy