Wuhan, Hubei province has recently reported 1,290 new fatalities, raising the latest official figures of the death toll in the city of China's central Hubei province to 3,869 and China's national death toll by 50% to more than 4,600, according to a report from BBC.
China said that the increase was because of updated reporting of deaths outside hospitals. They made this statement amid allegations of cover-up on their real numbers, downplaying the severity of its virus outbreak. They insisted that there was no cover-up.
The 11 million residents of Wuhan spent months under strict lockdown conditions, which the country just recently lifted.
According to Johns Hopkins University data, China now ranks the seventh-highest globally with 84,000 confirmed coronavirus cases. The pandemic has greatly affected the country's economy which shrank for the first time in decades in the first quarter of the year.
China's explanation behind the rise of death cases
The revised figures were the result of new data received from multiple sources which include the records kept by funeral homes and prisons, according to the officials in Wuhan in a statement released on Friday.
Infected patients who died outside of the hospitals, particularly those who died at home, had not been previously recorded.
Moreover, the statement said that the "statistical verification" followed efforts by the authority to make sure that information on Wuhan's COVID-19 epidemic is open, transparent, and accurate. There are instances wherein cases were counted more than once or missed entirely especially when the outbreak was first reported because the health systems were initially overwhelmed.
There was also a problem in testing at first because of its shortage in the early stages which means that there are many infected patients that were not accounted for.
Mo Feng, a spokesman for China's National Health Commission said that the new death count came from a "comprehensive review" of epidemic data.
Furthermore, the foreign ministry said in its daily news conference that the accusations of a cover-up that the US President Donald Trump has made stridently in the world stage, is unsubstantiated. A spokesman added that concealment is strictly not allowed.
Growing international concerns on China's revised figures
Chinese authorities launched an investigation into a mysterious viral pneumonia cases in Wuhan in December 2019. They reported the cases to the UN's global health agency, the World Health Organization (WHO), on December 31 of the same year.
It was only until February 10 that WHO was allowed to visit China to investigate the outbreak but by that time, China had already more than 40,000 cases.
When there were already about 100 cases of the coronavirus by the beginning of January, Wuhan's mayor admitted that there was a lack of action. Dr. Li Wenliang tried to warn his colleagues about an outbreak of a SARS-like virus but was silenced by the authorities. He later died from the infection.
There has been a growing international concern that deaths in China were under-reported. Many doubt of the veracity of China's official coronavirus statistics especially with Friday's revised figures has left analysts wondering if this is all a bit too neat.
