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From: TT
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Photo: Chinatopix / AP / TT
The Huanan Fish Market in Wuhan was closed in January after several people shopping there fell ill with Covid-19. In addition to sheep and meat, live animals such as foxes and cubs were sold on the market. In the image a salamander is captured. Stock Photography.
China’s relatively low covid numbers have raised suspicions that it is not being reported.
Now leaked documents show that the country published incorrect figures on the situation of the virus during the first months of the pandemic.
The pandemic is sweeping the world, leaving dead economies, injuries and personal tragedies in its path. But in the country where it all began, fewer than 100,000 cases and 5,000 deaths have been officially recorded among the country’s 1.3 billion inhabitants, a stark contrast to, for example, the 13.5 million infected in the United States or the 173,000 deaths. by covid in Brazil.
The very discovery of the coronavirus was initially silenced by China. One of the doctors who raised the alarm, already at the end of last year, was forced to sign a statement not to spread “false rumors.”
Experts agree that China’s official data should be taken with a pinch of salt and that there has likely been underreporting. But no one can say for sure, because the transparency of international experts is very limited.
Leaked documents
But now 117 pages of documents about the virus situation in Hubei province, where the worst-hit city of Wuhan is located, have been leaked to the CNN media company by an anonymous whistleblower in the Chinese health system. , showing that China repeatedly reported incorrect figures at the beginning of the pandemic.
On February 10, for example, local authorities in Hubei reported 5,918 new cases in a report labeled “confidential.” But officially, China reported only 2,478 new cases nationwide that day.
Another example cited is February 17, when 196 new deaths were recorded in the Hubei report, while the externally reported figure was 93.
However, in mid-February, Chinese authorities changed their way of reporting new cases, which, according to CNN, meant an improvement in the method.
The Chinese government has categorically rejected accusations by Western countries that they have deliberately withheld information about the virus situation. And CNN claims that although the leak cannot prove otherwise, they reveal several contradictions in the authorities’ reports on the development compared to the information that was made public.
The documents cover a limited impact during a period from October 2019 to April this year. CNN has called in multiple experts to verify the reports and describes a picture of a rigid, top-down, and bureaucratic healthcare system that had a hard time adapting to deal with an emerging crisis like the pandemic.
“Made mistakes”
Among other things, the documents show that in March an average of 23 days could pass from when a patient showed symptoms until he was diagnosed with COVID-19. Many tests were also lacking.
“Obviously, they made mistakes and not just mistakes that occur when it comes to a new virus, but also bureaucratic and politically motivated mismanagement,” Yanzhong Huang, a global health expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, told CNN.
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