China denies cover-up as it raises the death toll in Wuhan by half
Beijing insists there has been ‘no concealment’ but fatality figure remains far lower than other countries
Sophia Yan
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 US and UK.
US 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.
“The government can’t possibly tell the truth to the public,” said a taxi driver in Wuhan. “But as long as they know themselves, it’s fine. You see in America, it’s so high; they are reporting the real statistics.”
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.
Zhao Lijian, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, acknowledged that the virus’s rapid spread had contributed to undercounting, but added: “There has never been any concealment.”
The latest data change in Wuhan is significant and puts China’s national death toll at 4,636. But the count remains low compared with other nations – seven countries, including the UK, have more fatalities. The US has recorded the highest number of deaths in the world with more than 34,000.
“The new figures are still not credible,” said Steve Tsang, director of SOAS China Institute, a specialist research centre in London. “The Wuhan death toll is out of line with that in countries where Covid-19 took hold, and it is still out of line with likely excess death in the city.”
“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. Hence, a revision to a level less incredible, but one that will still present the party under Xi as having done a vastly better job than Western democratic governments.”
Five million people left Wuhan before lockdown measures were implemented, meaning the death toll would be lower than if the city was at full occupancy.
However, Mr Tsang says that the monthly death rate is still lower than would be expected in a city of six million, even with the revised numbers.
However, other countries are also adjusting their numbers. Ben Cowling, an epidemiologist at the University of Hong Kong said: “That happens everywhere.
“We still don’t know the full picture of mild infections in Wuhan, because in the early stages of the epidemic, the testing was focused on more severe cases.”
Experts say a new round of testing beginning in Wuhan, which seeks to determine how many people developed antibodies, is likely to give a much better picture of infection rates.