The head of China’s Hubei Province has ordered health officials to recalculate the number of coronavirus patients after hundreds of confirmed cases were removed from the tally on a single day.
The province’s health commission yesterday reported just 349 new sufferers – the lowest figure in weeks. But its capital Wuhan alone recorded 615 new cases, prompting questions.
Officials said they had deducted 279 cases from the daily statement based on a new way of diagnosing the disease.
The dipped number, compared to 1,693 from the day before, sparked a nationwide outcry with critics suggesting a political cover-up.
Hubei health officials have shifted hundreds of coronavirus patients off the daily toll causing a nationwide outcry. The picture above, taken on February 18, shows an overview of a temporary coronavirus hospital which has been converted from an exhibition center in Wuhan
Ying Yong, the newly appointed Community Party chief of Hubei, today banned the regional health authority from taking out any cases from its daily tally. The picture shows medical workers treat patients in the isolated intensive care units at a hospital in Wuhan on February 6
Mr Ying (pictured in 2017), the former mayor of Shanghai, replaced his predecessor Jiang Chaoliang, whose team had been accused of mishandling the health crisis by the public
Ying Yong, the newly appointed secretary of the Hubei Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China, today banned the regional health authority from taking out any cases from its daily tally.
The leader also ordered the team to add the previously deducted figure back to their report and punish the relevant officials responsible for the error.
His order was delivered by Tu Yuanchao, the deputy director of Hubei Provincial Health Commission, at a press conference today.
In yesterday’s report, Hubei Provincial Health Commission said there were 615 new cases from Wuhan on Wednesday and 13 new cases from four other cities.
It said 279 cases were taken out of the final total because the relevant patients, who had been clinically diagnosed to have coronavirus, got negative results in further nucleic acid detection tests.
The confusing information was caused by the fact that the Hubei government had changed the way of diagnosing the disease twice in the space of seven days.
The novel coronavirus has killed at least 2,249 people and infected more than 76,700 globally
More than 76,700 patients have been infected, including more than 1,000 outside of China
Over 2,200 people have now died from the killer coronavirus rapidly sweeping the world
Last Thursday, the government ordered all clinically diagnosed patients to be counted as confirmed cases in the daily toll.
However, a new policy was released on Wednesday requiring all confirmed cases to be tested positively in nucleic acid detection.
The conflicting directives caused many low-level health officials to slash the number of cases in their cities and counties.
Some critics suggested that the recent tolls had been manipulated by the Communist authority.
US-based Chinese-language TV network, New Tang Dynasty Television, claimed that the official figures started to ‘cooperate with the political situation’ after citizens in the country had begun to return to work.
The news outlet also pointed out that the drastic changes in the statistics could mean that the new leaders of Hubei were trying to push the blame of a government cover-up to their predecessors.
Mr Ying, the former mayor of Shanghai, last Thursday replaced his predecessor Jiang Chaoliang, whose team had been accused of mishandling the health crisis by the public.
Ma Guoqiang, Jiang’s counterpart in Wuhan, was dismissed on the same day and succeeded by Wang Zhonglin, the former party chief of Jinan.
Ma Guoqiang (left), Wuhan’s Communist Party chief, and Jiang Chaoliang (right), Hubei province’s Communist Party secretary, attend a provincial meeting in Wuhan, China, on February 10. Both senior officials were dismissed and replaced by Beijing last week
The city of Wuhan and a large part of Hubei have been on lockdown since late last month as a way to stop the spread of the coronavirus. In a picture above, a worker in protective suit serves customers at a checkout counter of a supermarket in Wuhan amid the coronavirus outbreak
Mr Ying’s order comes as more than 500 cases of the new coronavirus were detected in prisons across China – including two in Hubei – fuelling fears about the virus’s ability to spread rapidly in confined areas.
At least nine Communist officials and two prison chiefs from three provinces were sacked as a result before Beijing sent out a special team to investigate the situation.
Originating in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, the new coronavirus – known as COVID-19 – has infected more than 75,400 people inside China and 76,700 globally.
The Chinese government has locked down tens of millions of people in Hubei Province, of which Wuhan is the capital city, to prevent the spread of the disease.
Hubei, situated in central China, accounts for more than 80 per cent of the confirmed cases and 95 per cent of the deaths worldwide.
As the viral illness remain to threaten millions of people in China and worldwide, temperature checks have been part of the daily routine. Pictured, Chinese President Xi Jinping receives a temperature check as he visits a community health centre in Beijing on February 10
Meanwhile, Iran has confirmed 13 new cases of the killer virus as well as two new deaths, bringing its total fatalities to four, the highest outside of mainland China.
Italy also announced three new cases of SARS-CoV-2, after a 38-year-old man caught it from a friend who’d recently returned from China and infected his wife and a close friend.
The man is said to be in ‘very serious condition’ and struggling to breathe in an intensive care unit.
And cases in South Korea have soared, with investigators focusing on a church and hospital in the southern city of Daegu as clusters of infection.
Overnight, health officials from Hubei reported 631 new cases out of a nationwide total of 889 and 115 of the 118 new deaths across China.
Globally, the coronavirus epidemic has killed at least 2,249 people, infected more than 76,700 and spread to at least two dozen countries.