China Deleted Early Data On Covid-19?

Did China delete data on the early Covid-19 virus in an attempt to conceal its existence? According to a scientific paper, over a dozen Coronavirus test sequences taken during the early months of the disease were removed from the database of the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The data is seen as crucial to those seeking to understand the spread of the virus. Some of the sequences were later retrieved by researchers and a partial reconstruction was made possible.