‘China Under-Reporting Coronavirus Cases, Giving Fake Numbers’: Claims US Intelligence Report

The skeletons are apparently tumbling out of the closet. A media report on Wednesday (1 April) claimed that the Chinese government has deliberately under-reported the total number of new coronavirus (COVID-19) cases and deaths in the country.

Citing US intelligence officials, Bloomberg said that "China's public reporting of COVID-19 infections and deaths is purposefully incomplete".

The US intelligence community has submitted a classified report on this to the White House.

"Two of the officials said the report concludes that China's numbers are fake," the Bloomberg report added.

According to the data from Johns Hopkins University, China has reported 82,361 coronavirus cases and 3,305 deaths while the cases in the US has almost touched 2 lakh, with over 4,000 deaths.

The White House or any Chinese official were yet to comment on the report.

There have been murmurs in the world intelligence community of China not disclosing real coronavirus figures, which Beijing has always denied.

Earlier, a Chinese blogger based in New York, Jennifer Zeng, posted the official monthly data released on March 19, showing the number of cellphone users decreased from 1.600957 billion to 1.579927 billion in February 2020. Zeng insinuated the drop could be due to the closing of accounts due to coronavirus-related deaths.

Amid concerns of the Chinese Government officials not being transparent in reporting of the confirmed cases of those affected by Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and related deaths, China on Tuesday (31 March) revealed more than 1,500 more cases which had not been made public previously, reports the Times of India.

The development comes almost after two weeks of first announcement by the Chinese authorities which claimed that China had witnessed zero new local infections. The revelation comes as a major dent on the claims of China's success in containing the pandemic.

The 1,541 new cases which were announced yesterday (31 March) are all cases which had tested positive for having contracted the virus, but had remained asymptomatic. The cases were announced by China's National Health Commission.

Despite the recommendation of the World Health Organisation (WHO) in this regard, China had previously not included asymptomatic patients in the numbers it had been public. This had raised concerns worldwide that China was not reporting the true scale of the outbreak within its boundaries.

Additionally, the activities in Hubei province, the epicenter of the novel coronavirus seem to contradict the reported death toll in China.

The seven funeral homes in the city of Wuhan were reported to be burning bodies 24 hours a day, seven days a week in late January. Hubei Province has used 40 mobile crematoria, each capable of burning five tons of medical waste and bodies a day since February 16.

"The Chinese Communist Party's cover-up and mismanagement allowed the virus to spread throughout China and create a global pandemic," US-based independent news media run by American Chinese, The Epoch Times wrote.

This news has been published via Syndicate feed. Only the headline has been changed.