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KEVIN FRAYER / GETTY IMAGES
At least 50 percent more people died at the epicenter of the Wuhan virus in China than previously reported.
At least 50 percent more people died at the epicenter of the Wuhan virus in China than previously reported, and state media on Friday attributed the initial count of how overwhelmed the health system was with thousands of sick patients. .
The addition of 1,290 victims raised Wuhan’s death toll to 3,869, the most in China, and can confirm suspicions that far more people died in the city where the disease began than previously announced.
The city’s total confirmed cases of 11 million people also increased by 325 to 50,333, representing approximately two-thirds of the total of 82,367 reported cases in China.
Wuhan’s revised figures brought the death toll in China to 4,632, compared to 3,342 announced by the National Health Commission on Friday morning (local time).
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The official Xinhua News Agency An unidentified official at Wuhan Epidemic and Prevention and Control Headquarters said that during the early stages of the outbreak, “due to insufficient intake and treatment capacity, some medical institutions were unable to connect in time to the prevention system and disease control, while hospitals were overloaded and doctors were overwhelmed with patients.
“As a result, there were late, missing, and erroneous reports,” the official said.
The new figures were compiled by comparing data from the Wuhan Epidemic Prevention and Control System, the City Funeral Service, the Municipal Hospital Authority and nucleic acid tests to “eliminate double-counting cases and complete lost cases” said the official. .
NG HAN GUAN / AP
Passengers wearing face masks and rain coats to protect themselves against the spread of the new coronavirus walk outside the Hankou train station after the resumption of train services in Wuhan in China’s central Hubei province.
Deaths outside of hospitals had not been previously recorded and some medical institutions had confirmed cases, but reported them late or not at all, the official said.
For a long time, questions revolved around the accuracy of China’s case reports, and Wuhan in particular went several days in January without reporting new cases or deaths. That has led to allegations that Chinese officials were seeking to minimize the impact of the outbreak and waste opportunities to control it in a shorter time.
A group of eight medical workers, including a doctor who later died from the virus, were even threatened by police for trying to alert people to the disease on social media.
XIE HUANCHI / AP
In this photo released by China’s Xinhua News Agency, Chinese President Xi Jinping talks to patients and medical workers on video at Huoshenshan Hospital in Wuhan, central China’s Hubei province.
Chinese authorities have strictly denied covering up the cases, saying their reports were accurate and timely.
However, the UN World Health Organization has been criticized for defending China’s handling of the outbreak, and United States President Donald Trump is suspending funding to the WHO for what it claims is a bias in favor of China.
Trump’s blame on China came after he initially spent weeks praising Chinese President Xi Jinping for the country’s performance in the pandemic, while largely ruling out the risk it posed to the United States.
At the start of the outbreak, China proceeded cautiously and largely in secret, emphasizing political stability and the leadership of the ruling Xi Communist Party.
More than 3,000 people had been infected before the Chinese government told the public that a pandemic was likely, something that officials had concluded six days earlier.
The risk of sustained person-to-person transmission was also minimized, even when infected people entered hospitals across the country and the first case was found outside of China, in Thailand.
Officials even sought to blame the US USA For the outbreak, and Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian tweeted without evidence on March 12: “It could be the US military that brought the epidemic to Wuhan … The United States owes us an explanation!”
