China has denied any cover-up in its Covid-19 reporting after it revised upwards the death toll from the pandemic in Wuhan city by extra 1,290 deaths.
The Chinese city of Wuhan was where the outbreak of the virus started but the death toll from there was only reported to be 2,579.
The latest revelation of extra 1290 deaths that were unreported put the total death toll in Wuhan at 3,869 as at April 17, 2020.
China’s total nationwide death toll from the pandemic has also been revised upwards to 4,632 as a result of the latest reporting.
State broadcaster CGTN quoted a Wuhan official as saying that “In the early stage, due to limited hospital capacity and the shortage of medical staff, a few medical institutions failed to connect with local disease control and prevention systems in a timely manner, which resulted in delayed reporting of confirmed cases and some failures to count patients accurately.”
China has always been accused of hiding the true extent of the pandemic with US government accusing the World Health Organization of covering up for China.
But the Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said the latest revelation was because of a statistical review to ensure accuracy.
He said that revisions are a common international practice and not a cover up in any way.
Meanwhile some experts, say fatality numbers in many other countries also failed to show the real toll.
They argue that some people may have died from COVID-19, without being tested or not going to hospital which have not been included in tallies.
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Source: Africafeeds.com
