Exclusive: Chinese province underreports coronavirus cases by up to 52 times, leaked documents show

The novel #CoronavirusOutbreak in China’s #Shandong province is much worse than officially reported.

Leaked internal government data shows between Feb. 9 to 23, Shandong authorities underreported the number of infections every day. The latter kept a tally of the number of patients who tested positive for the virus during nucleic acid testing—using a diagnostic kit to test body samples and detect whether they contain the virus’s genetic sequence.

The Shandong CDC daily numbers ranged from being 1.36 times to 52 times greater than the officially published data by China’s National Health Commission.

As of Feb. 25, the Shandong government stated that there were a total of 755 infections in the province. But the internal document showed that 1,992 people had tested positive for the virus via nucleic acid testing as of Feb. 23.

The government publicly stated that there were four newly diagnosed coronavirus patients on Feb. 22, but the internal document said that 61 patients were diagnosed with the virus that day.

In recent days, official data has shown new infections leveling off. For example, on Feb. 25, the National Health Commission reported only a total of nine new diagnosed cases outside of Hubei province, where the outbreak is most severe.

In fact, Shandong alone had new infections in the double digits daily. On Feb. 20, new infections spiked, with 274 testing positive.

To date, this is the most definitive evidence that Chinese authorities routinely underreport cases. Previously, The Epoch Times interviewed staff at funeral homes in the city of Wuhan, the capital of Hubei, who said they had to work round the clock in order to keep up with the dramatic increase in workload.

Health experts have also hypothesized that Chinese official figures are inaccurate, based on their statistical modeling. Recently, a group of American researchers published a study, not yet peer-reviewed, in which they suggested cumulative infections and deaths in China could be “substantially higher” than officially stated—by a factor of 5 to 10.

U.S.-based China commentator Tang Jingyuan said that authorities reporting fewer infections was likely a tactic to convince Chinese citizens that the virus’s spread was contained and thus, it would be safe to return to work.

Chinese businesses were shut down for the Lunar New Year holiday, which was extended in order to prevent cross-infection in the workplace. The central government, fearing the economic inactivity could have long-term impact, asked firms to resume operations on Feb. 10.

“It [Beijing] is trying to create an image that most of the country is safe enough to resume production,” Tang said.
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