Wuhan death figures surge casts shadow over Communist Party

New Delhi: The leadership of the Chinese Communist Party may be slipping in its game as figures are “falsified” and it was suddenly announced that Wuhan, the epicentre of the coronavirus, death toll has risen by 50 per cent, claiming that many fatalities were "mistakenly" reported or missed.

This comes amid several nations are increasingly questioning China's transparency regarding the pandemic. Wuhan city's government took to social media to announce that it had added 1,290 more death cases to the city's tally. The new addition pushes the toll to 3,869, the most number of COVID-19 related fatalities.

It also increases the nationwide toll in China up by nearly 39 per cent to 4,6,32, international media reported citing China's official data released on April 17.


Defending its late admissions, Wuhan's Epidemic Prevention and Control Headquarters claimed that city's medical staffs were overwhelmed in the early days as infections climbed, leading to late reporting, omission and missed reporting. The department also claimed insufficient testing and treatment facilities and said that some patients died at home and thus their deaths were not properly reported.

On April 15, China shut down one of its largest makeshift hospitals built in February to treat the COVID-19 infections in Wuhan.

Meanwhile, the UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab stated there would have to be a 'deep dive' into the facts around the outbreak, which started in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

It came as Beijing stated the WHO has found no evidence coronavirus was man-made, fending off accusations that it was created in a Chinese lab in Wuhan.

Raab said, 'I think there absolutely needs to be a very, very deep dive after the event review of the lessons - including of the outbreak of the virus - and I don't think we can flinch from that at all, it needs to be driven by the science.'

He said the UK had good co-operation with China in relation to the return of UK nationals and in procurement of equipment.

'So we ought to look at all sides of this and do it in a balanced way, but there is no doubt we can't have business as usual after this crisis, and we will have to ask the hard questions about how it came about and how it couldn't have been stopped earlier.'