China denies coronavirus coverup

Officials raise death toll in Wuhan by half

China has denied covering up the true extent of the coronavirus outbreak after releasing new figures that increase the death toll in Wuhan by 50 per cent

The death toll for Wuhan now stands at 3,869 after China added 1,290 cases. It came as the number of infections increased retrospectively by 325, pushing the overall count to 50,333, according to a government statement online.

Officials said the revision was due to overwhelmed hospitals and medical staff, which meant some people died at home after being unable to be admitted. The surge of patients also meant delayed or missed reports about infections and deaths.

Yet the new official figures are at odds with reports by workers of 5,000 bodies waiting for urgent cremation at just one of Wuhan’s eight crematoriums.

The change to data will likely seed further doubt about the accuracy of figures reported by the Chinese government, which have already been questioned by the United States and the United Kingdom.

U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that China concealed the extent of the outbreak and under-reported the infection and death count.

The consequence of China’s potentially suppressed figures, and scientific data, is that it impacted what countries understood about the pandemic and the risks involved, along with how nations prepared their emergency responses.

On the ground in Wuhan, many also doubt the figures, but are unsure what the real numbers are. Globally, the coronavirus has infected more than 2.16 million, killing nearly 146,000.

People who died of what doctors strongly hinted was the coronavirus, but who were never given tests, were not included in the official death toll. China has denied these charges, insisting it has been transparent. But multiple revisions to how it confirmed cases — leading to a one-day record spike of almost 15,000 cases — have added to concerns that the figures don’t represent the true scale of the outbreak.

The virus’s rapid spread contributed to undercounting Zhao Lijian, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, said, adding nothing was “concealed”.

The latest data change puts China’s national death toll at 4,636. But the count remains low compared with other nations — seven countries have more fatalities.

“The new figures are still not credible,” said Steve Tsang, director of SOAS China Institute, a research centre in London. “The Wuhan death toll is out of line.

“The statistics have been changed most probably because the old figures were so ridiculous that even the Communist Party propaganda department knows it was unsustainable.”