The news report on Caixin indicating that 5-6% of Wuhan residents tested positive for Corona was quickly pulled down
Few days ago, Caixin, a Chinese online news portal, published the results of a seroepidemiological study carried out in April on 11,000 Wuhan residents. These results found that five to six percent of those tested had antibodies for COVID-19 which means that approximately 500,000 of the city’s residents have been infected with the disease, reports Taiwannews.
The news becomes important and China has officially claimed that only 50,000 people have been infected with Corona in Wuhan. On May 15, Sina reprinted the article, but it was quickly taken offline along with the Caixin piece, reports Taiwannews.
The Taiwannews report also says that as the word about the seroepidemiological study spread among Chinese netizens, several of them took to Weibo, a Chinese social media app, to mock the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for yet again covering up the real data. They also called out the government for taking the article down.
A German new portal Deutsche Welle cited one Chinese netizen who sarcastically wrote, “Openness, transparency, and responsibility,” qualities that Xi Jinping claimed China had maintained throughout the pandemic during his opening speech at Monday’s (May 18) World Health Assembly (WHA). Another netizen sarcastically wrote, “don’t worry, whether it’s 500,000 or 1 million, it will be a zero case diagnosis.”
Wuhan was locked down for 70 days from Jan. 23 to April 8. However, no new confirmed cases were reported by the government for 36 days until May 9, with five new confirmed cases and 11 asymptomatic cases reported on May 10.
China claims that the total number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in the entire country since the start of the outbreak is 82,960, with 4,634 deaths. However, the data is considered to be deliberately underestimated by a wide margin. A set of data on coronavirus cases and deaths from the National University of Defense Technology leaked to Foreign Policy revealed that the number of cases in 230 cities across China could actually exceed 640,000.
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