Covid-19: UK Removes China From Its Comparative List Over ‘Significant Revision’ In Infection Rates

Amid suspicion on the figures of confirmed cases and deaths reported by China as an outcome of COVID-19 pandemic, the United Kingdom (UK) Prime Minister (PM)'s office (10 Downing Street) has removed China from its comparisons of other countries' response to the crisis, reports Economic Times.

So far, the UK had been displaying China's low rate of infections, as well its low tally of deaths on its charts in the daily Number 10 press briefings. Justifying the move to do away with China's figures, UK PM's spokesperson said, "This is because a significant revision to China's data on 17 April means we are unable to compare their daily death rates with other countries, as we do not know when the deaths occurred."

Meanwhile, it should be noted that the move by the Downing Street comes as certain ruling party's Members of the Parliament (MPs) hold apprehensions that dependence on the inaccurate figures reported by China could send UK's own response off track. Furthermore, some of the ruling party's MPs have also set up a China Research Group to promote debate and fresh thinking on Britain's relationship with China.

China Research Group's founder Tom Tugendhat, who is also the chairman of the Commons foreign affairs select committee, said, "This data is used to judge the effectiveness of our own response, whether good or bad. It's important we are comparing like with like, otherwise our own responses could be distorted leading to more deaths in the UK."