BEIJING (AP) — Every few days brings another grim milestone in the coronavirus outbreak. First Italy and Spain surpassed China in reported deaths. This week, the United States and France did.
But did they really?
Skepticism about China's numbers has swirled throughout the crisis, fueled by the government’s suppression of bad news in the early days and a general distrust of the government. Long lines of people waiting to collect the ashes of loved ones at funeral homes last week revived the debate.
There is no smoking gun pointing to a coverup by China's ruling Communist Party. But intentional or not, there is reason to believe that more people died of Covid-19 than the official tally, which stood at 3,312 late Tuesday. The same applies to the 81,554 confirmed cases, now exceeded by the U.S., Italy and Spain.
The health system in Wuhan, the city where three-fourths of China's reported victims died, was overwhelmed at the peak of the outbreak. Hospitals overflowed, patients with symptoms were sent home and there weren't enough kits to test everyone.
In any country, getting a complete picture in the fog of war is virtually impossible.
"The number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 by country appears like a grim league table and draws the attention of many," said Hsu Li Yang, who heads the infectious diseases program at the National University of Singapore. "However, it is important to understand that these numbers — be it from China, Italy, Singapore or the U.S.A. — are all inaccurate, and they are all underestimates to varying degrees of the actual number of infections."
China scrambled hard in late January to handle the spiraling number of infected people and test them. On some days, it reported more new suspected cases — those who had symptoms but had not yet been tested — than confirmed ones.
Those who died before they were tested never made it into the official death tally. Just how many is unclear. An unidentified doctor told Caixin, a Chinese magazine, that the death toll for suspected cases at the doctor's hospital was almost as high as for confirmed ones over a 20-day period.
Others died at home before they were tested, since hospitals didn't have enough beds to admit them.
Some people in China asked on social media whether the reported death toll was inaccurate for those reasons. The posts have been deleted by government censors.
A few posts raised the question again last week after online images showed people in Wuhan lining up for hours to collect the ashes of relatives, and anecdotal media reports that thousands of urns were being delivered to funeral homes. As of Tuesday, the city's coronavirus death toll was 2,553.
The city, which is gradually easing virus-control restrictions that have kept residents from moving around for two months, began allowing ashes to be collected in time for an upcoming holiday when people tend to relatives’ graves.
One social media post asked the government to publish how many people die on average in the city and how many have died this year to give a better reckoning of victims.
Even without the virus, several thousand die every month in the city of 11 million people. From January to March last year, 14,700 bodies were cremated in Wuhan, according to quarterly data posted online.
The city has diverted most of its medical resources to fighting the virus, leaving some other sick people without care. Early in the crisis, one woman told The Associated Press a relative died after a long wait for an ambulance. She couldn't say for sure that caused his death, but more people may have died than usual from other causes because they couldn't get treated.