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Video report by Debi Edward, ITV News Asia correspondent
It is rare that Chinese government documents are leaked. Anyone who committed such an act would face jail and suffer for their betrayal.
The internal data provided to CNN adds to other evidence, and speculation, that China withheld information, reported fewer of its cases and was in a state of chaos in the first months of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Some of the prominent figures from the Hubei province newspapers show that one day in February the government reported 93 deaths, but 196 were recorded.
It is now true that many countries, including the UK, have figures that do not tell the full story of their national pandemic situation. The difference is that no post-pandemic investigation or investigation of your data will be allowed in China.
This is not surprising to some of us who spoke today in Wuhan. We met Zhu Tao, who lost two family members to the virus. He compared the situation to SARS and said once again that the government did everything possible to hide the truth and prevent information from being leaked.
He told me that in a country governed by that political system, it is normal for such a thing to happen.
We returned to Wuhan a year after the day doctors treated the first patient for virus symptoms.
On the surface we find a city that seems completely recovered. Masks are now commonplace, but the streets are packed with people and social distancing is a thing of the past, if it was ever enforced.
It is only by meeting people like Zhong Han Neng that you get a glimpse of the pain and suffering that are still so stark for those who suffered from this pandemic first.
Han Neng’s son, 39, died after contracting the virus. She believes that he would still be alive today if the government had been open and warned people in Wuhan earlier.
Documents leaked to CNN revealed that in the first months of the outbreak it took an average of 23 days to diagnose a case.
For Han Nengs’ son, it took more than two weeks and in that time he was unable to receive the treatment that could have saved his life.
It’s hard to believe that 12 months have passed since the first cases of Covid-19 emerged. At the time, the virus was being compared to SARS, it had no name and no one could have imagined the devastating consequences it would have and continues to have around the world.
In recent weeks, the Chinese government has stepped up its propaganda campaign, suggesting that although the first group of cases was detected in Wuhan, the city is not necessarily the place where the virus originated.
It points to cases of a flu-like virus reported in Italy and India before the outbreak in Wuhan.
This comes as the country stalls in an international origin investigation, with the World Health Organization still waiting to receive permission to return to Wuhan and see evidence taken from the Huanan wet market.
So far, only Chinese research teams have had access to the so-called Ground Zero of Covid-19 market. Looking at it now, all bricked up, the WHO will likely examine it when they return.
It appears that there are still more questions than answers about when, how and why this pandemic occurred. The Chinese government insists that it has been open and transparent, but without independent scrutiny of its claims, that statement is difficult to defend.
