Dr. Anthony Fauci, an infectious disease expert, said China did a “disservice” by not allowing scientists to speak transparently about the coronavirus in the early days of the pandemic.

“I think the Chinese authorities that did not allow the scientists to speak out as openly and transparently as they could really did a disservice,” Fauci told John Catsimatidis on his AM 970 radio show on Sunday.

Fauci said if Chinese scientists had been able to sound the alarm earlier about person-to-person transmission of the virus, the number of cases worldwide could have been reduced.

“Because at the beginning of the outbreak, they were claiming that this was just animal-to-human transmission,” he said.

“And there really wasn’t a human-to-human transmission at all. And they held that line for a few weeks. And then it became very clear when the scientists were able to talk about it, that, in fact, there was human-to-human transmission. … Yes, it’s another example of the unfortunate situation of lack of transparency early on,” Fauci said.