The Chinese city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus originated last year, has raised its official Covid-19 death toll by 50%, adding 1,290 fatalities.
The Chinese city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus originated last year, has raised its official Covid-19 death toll by 50%, adding 1,290 fatalities.
The city government said in a social media posting that it had added 1,290 deaths to the tally in Wuhan, where the global pandemic emerged and which has suffered the vast majority of China’s fatalities from COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.
That brings the total number of deaths in the city to 3,869.
The revised figures are the result of new data received from multiple sources, including records kept by funeral homes and prisons, says the release
Deaths linked to the virus outside hospitals, such as people who died at home, had not previously been recorded.
A revised death and case count is not necessarily unexpected. Countries around the world are likely underreporting the real number of cases and deaths due to limited testing availability and an overwhelmed health care system, the Times reported.
Earlier, on April 8, China lifted 73-day lockdown of Wuhan amid sharp increase in COVID-19 cases.
On January 23, Wuhan declared unprecedented traffic restrictions, including suspending the city’s public transport and all outbound flights and trains, in an attempt to contain the epidemic.
The Wuhan lockdown was lifted even as epidemiologists warned that it is not the time to completely lower the guard and ease on full-scale restrictions, considering the looming asymptomatic patients and possible rebound in infections, the official media reported.
As the lockdown was lifted, tens of thousands of people from Wuhan began leaving the city on Wednesday. The government has lifted the ban on road, air and train travel for all the locals who have acquired health certificates.
