The CIA has been warning the 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 the US compiles predictive models to fight the virus, according to current and former intelligence officials.

The intelligence briefings in recent weeks, based at least in part on information from CIA assets in China, played an important role in President Trump’s negotiation on Thursday of an apparent détente with President Xi Jinping of China. Since then, both countries have ratcheted back criticism of each other.

Obtaining a more accurate count of the Chinese rate of infection and deaths from the virus has worldwide public health implications at a time of grave uncertainty over the virus, its speed of transmission and other fundamental questions.

For American officials, the totals are critical to getting a better understanding of how Covid-19 will affect the US in the months to come and of the effectiveness of countermeasures like social distancing, according to American intelligence agencies and White House officials.

So far, to the frustration of both the White House and the intelligence community, the agencies have been unable to glean more accurate numbers through their collection efforts.

But American intelligence agencies have concluded that the Chinese government itself does not know the extent of the virus and is as blind as the rest of the world. Midlevel bureaucrats in the city of Wuhan, where the virus originated, and elsewhere in China have been lying about infection rates, testing and death counts, fearful that if they report numbers that are too high they will be punished, lose their position or worse, current and former intelligence officials said.

Bureaucratic misreporting is a chronic problem for any government, but it has grown worse in China as the Communist leadership has taken a more authoritarian turn in recent years under Xi.

No complete picture of the virus exists anywhere because of factors beyond government suppression. Iran has obfuscated its struggles with the pandemic. Italy’s death count of more than 13,000, the most worldwide, leaves out people who died outside hospitals. Testing in the US lags behind other countries.

But since January, White House officials have come to view with scepticism the Chinese tallies in particular and asked the CIA and other intelligence agencies to prioritise collection of information on China. Bloomberg News first reported the CIA’s assessment that China was underreporting its virus diagnoses and deaths.