China's president Xi Jinping 'personally asked WHO to hold back information about human-to-human transmission and delay a global pandemic warning' at the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, bombshell report claims

A bombshell report claims Chinese President Xi Jinping personally asked World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom to 'delay a global warning' about the threat of COVID-19 during a conversation back in January.  

Germany's Der Spiegel published the allegations this weekend, citing intelligence from the country's Federal Intelligence Service, known as the 'Bundesnachrichtendienst' (BND). 

According to the BND: 'On January 21, China's leader Xi Jinping asked WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to hold back information about a human-to-human transmission and to delay a pandemic warning. 

'The BND estimates that China's information policy lost four to six weeks to fight the virus worldwide'.

The WHO released a statement shortly after the publication of the shock claims, calling them 'unfounded and untrue'. 

A bombshell report  in Der Spiegel claims Chinese President Xi Jinping (right) personally asked World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom  (left) to 'delay a global warning' about the threat of COVID-19 in January. The pair are pictured together in Beijing on January 28 of this year. The WHO has denied the allegation

'Dr Tedros and President Xi did not speak on January  21 and they have never spoken by phone. Such inaccurate reports distract and detract from WHO's and the world's efforts to end the COVID-19 pandemic,' the statement read. 

It continued: 'China confirmed human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus on January 20 [prior to the alleged phone conversation].

'The WHO publicly declared on January 22 that "data collected … suggests that human-to-human transmission is taking place in Wuhan."'

If the claims were true, they would bolster President Trump's assertion that the WHO is 'China-centric'. 

Back in April, the Trump Administration alleged the WHO was becoming a tool of 'Chinese propaganda', and the president moved to halt funding of the organization. 

Last week, the President launched a fresh attack on the organization during a Fox News virtual town hall meeting. 

'The World Health organisation has been a disaster everything they said was wrong and they're China-centric,' he stated at the event, held last Monday.  

Relations between Washington and the WHO has soured throughout the crisis after Trump consistently accused the body of siding with China, saying it has been hand-in-glove with Xi Jinping in covering up the outbreak. Pictured is a lab in Wuhan that is certified to handle dangerous pathogens 

'Dr Tedros and President Xi did not speak on January 21 and they have never spoken by phone,' the WHO said in a statement

'All they do is agree with China, whatever China wants to do. So our country, perhaps foolishly in retrospect has been paying $450million a year to the World Health Organisation and China's been paying $38million a year but they were more political than all of our leaders previously.

'What they did, what World Health did, was they missed every single call and we're not going to put up with it.'  

Relations between Washington and the WHO has soured throughout the crisis after Trump consistently accused the body of siding with China, saying it has been hand-in-glove with Xi Jinping in covering up the outbreak. 

Director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has hailed China as an exemplar of how to handle an emergency despite widespread skepticism of the country's official coronavirus death toll.  

Earlier this week, Trump also said there was enough evidence to prove President Xi Jinping's regime misled the global community. 

'Well, I don't think there's any question about it. We wanted to go in, they didn't want us to go in. Things are coming out that are pretty compelling. I don't think there's any question,' the president said Sunday.

'Personally, I think they made a horrible mistake, and they didn't want to admit it,' he added. 

His comments came as a Department of Homeland Security report shared on Sunday revealed US officials believe China 'intentionally concealed the severity' of the pandemic in early January and hoarded medical supplies.

The four-page report dated May 1 that was obtained by the Associated Press notes that China downplayed the virus publicly but increased imports and decreased exports of medical supplies.

The document accuses China of covering their tracks by 'denying there were export restrictions and obfuscating and delaying provision of its trade data.'

It lends weight to a leaked dossier drawn up by the Five Eyes intelligence alliance which describes how Beijing made whistleblowers 'disappear', destroyed early virus samples and scrubbed the internet of any mention of the disease in the early stages. 

More than 4 million people around the world have contracted the highly contagious virus, and at least 279,000 have died. 

There are currently at least 1.3 million cases of coronavirus in the U.S. and more than 79,000 deaths.