"'COVID-19 Origin' Wuhan, Only 2 Deaths?"... China Suspected of Concealing Death Toll

China officially reports only 2 deaths since April 2020

Entrance of Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China.
Photo by Yonhap News

[Asia Economy Reporter Na Ye-eun] China has come under suspicion of concealing the number of victims by not disclosing the number of deaths in Wuhan, the initial epicenter of COVID-19, over the past two years.

The American business magazine Forbes raised allegations of a government-led systematic cover-up of death toll figures, noting that China has not released related information or official statistics on the death toll trends even two years after the full lockdown of Wuhan city in December 2019.

Wuhan city has traditionally compiled and publicly released quarterly death toll trends annually. However, the media pointed out, "Since the fourth quarter of 2019, when the first confirmed COVID-19 case was detected, no information on death toll trends has been announced."

Concerns were also raised about the consistency and reliability of data released by Chinese authorities. Criticism emerged that the official death toll figures released by China over the past two years since the detection of COVID-19 cases have been extremely outside the normal range.

The media highlighted that over the past two years, the mortality rates in South Korea, Japan, and Singapore were about 10 to 20 times lower compared to European and Latin American countries, whereas China’s mortality rate was 30 to 50 times lower even compared to these three countries. The number of deaths per one million population was 107.5 in South Korea, 145.7 in Japan, and 144.9 in Singapore, while China’s figure was only 3.21.

Accordingly, numerous foreign media criticized Chinese authorities for failing to provide proper information on COVID-19 over the past two years and for being the only country in the world that has not released internal mortality statistics, including death tolls during this period.

In particular, the credibility of the Chinese government’s official count of only two additional deaths since April 2020 has been questioned. Previously, the Chinese government reported 22,102 infection cases from April 1, 2020, to last January, but the death toll was only two.

Dr. George Calhoun of Stevenson Institute of Technology in the United States stated, "This is statistically impossible," adding, "It should be remembered that in 2020, there were no vaccines related to COVID-19, and treatments had not yet been developed. The claim of a 0% mortality rate among tens of thousands of COVID-19 infected individuals is medically impossible."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.