If the Chinese communists had honestly informed the West about the human-to-human transmission of the Wuhan coronavirus as well as how many people were actually dying, then authorities in Europe and the United States might have reacted more quickly to the threat.

That’s the assessment of Dr. Anthony Fauci (shown), a key member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Fauci expressed this view Friday night on PBS NewsHour, and a report in the Washington Post says Communist China woefully under-reported the numbers of those infected and dead from the disease.

In other words, China not only permitted the insidious virus to breed but also lied about it after it jumped from animals to humans to begin its deadly, global march.

Lie No. 1

“It became clear that what the Chinese had claimed originally, that this was just a virus that jumped from an animal reservoir to a human, and wasn’t being transmitted from human to human, well, it became very clear pretty quickly that that was not the case,” Fauci said.

As well, “when the numbers started coming in as to what the morbidity and the mortality was, it was during that period in early to mid-January that it became clear to me that this was not just another SARS, it wasn’t another MERS, or Middle East Respiratory Syndrome.”

Granted, Fauci said, nothing could have stopped the deadly pathogen. But again, the Communist China lied about it.

“I don’t think anything would have prevented the spread of this virus,” he said. “Once it emerged into society, with its capability of efficient spread and morbidity and mortality, that was it.”

Fauci continued:

But what could have been different … is that, if we had known that this was highly transmissible early on, when it was just in China, I think other countries would have maybe been more quick on the trigger to try and inhibit travel from China to their country…. So, that delay in transparency, I think, likely had an impact on what I just said, the awareness that this could seed the rest of the world.

In January, Fauci told Greg Kelly of NewsMax TV that the virus was not then something Americans should worry about. “Well, obviously, you need to take it seriously,” he told Kelly. “And do the kinds of things that the CDC and the Department of Homeland Security are doing. But this is not a major threat for the people in the United States, and this is not something the citizens of the United States right now should be worried about.”

Lie No. 2

Communist China also lied about the number of victims. Friday night, the Washington Post reported that the numbers could be as much as 1,700 percent greater than official reports:

The coronavirus pandemic ravaging the globe officially claimed 2,563 lives in Wuhan, where it began in a market that sold exotic animals for consumption. But evidence emerging from the city as it stirs from its two-month hibernation suggests that the real death toll is exponentially higher.

Long lines have been forming at funeral homes in Wuhan over the past two weeks, as family members have been informed that they may collect their loved ones’ remains ahead of Tomb-Sweeping Day. Some waited six hours to receive an urn, then the ashes.

The Hankou Funeral Home’s crematorium was operating 19 hours a day, with male staffers enlisted to help carry bodies. In just two days, the home received 5,000 urns, the respected magazine Caixin reported.

As Wuhan reopens, China revs engine to move past coronavirus. But it’s stuck in second gear.

Using photos posted online, social media sleuths have estimated that Wuhan funeral homes have returned 3,500 urns a day since March 23. That would imply a death toll in Wuhan of about 42,000 — or 16 times the official number. Another widely shared calculation from Radio Free Asia, based on Wuhan’s 84 furnaces running nonstop and each cremation taking an hour, put the death toll at 46,800.

Even Wuhan’s people don’t believe the lies, the Post reported. “It can’t be right … because the incinerators have been working round the clock, so how can so few people have died?” a resident told the radio network.

Rounding the death toll to 47,000 would mean fatalities are 18.3 times higher than official communist statistics.

That’s a difference of 1,734 percent.

Hat tip: Breitbart

Photo of Dr. Anthony Fauci: AP Images

R. Cort Kirkwood is a longtime contributor to The New American and a former newspaper editor.