China ‘intentionally’ lied about coronavirus outbreak, number of deaths: New U.S. intelligence report concludes China’s numbers are fake

With the number of coronavirus cases continues to rise around the world, it is surprising to see that the number of cases in China remains almost the same. Many are wondering if the deadly virus has slowed in China or the Chinese government just stopped reporting the numbers.

It turns out that China has been hiding the extent of the coronavirus outbreak in its country, under-reporting both total cases and deaths it’s suffered from the disease, according to a new report from Bloomberg, citing U.S. intelligence community classified report to the White House. “The officials asked not to be identified because the report is secret and declined to detail its contents. But the thrust, they said, is that China’s public reporting on cases and deaths is intentionally incomplete. Two of the officials said the report concludes that China’s numbers are fake,” Bloomberg said.

In addition, stacks of thousands of urns outside funeral homes in Wuhan raise public doubts about China’s official reporting. Local Wuhan residents said the number of urns is far greater than actual numbers of reported deaths by the Chinese officials. 2,500 urns were reportedly shipped on both Wednesday and Thursday, according to Chinese media outlet Caixin. Also, there were 13,856 cremations in Wuhan in the fourth quarter of 2019, according to Bloomberg calculations based on data from the city’s civil affairs agency. That was 2,419 lower than in the fourth quarter of 2018.

However, these reports do not come as a surprise to many people who have been following the story. China had 381 cases but reported only 41 to World Health Organization (WHO). On December 31, 2019, the South China Morning Post, a Hong Kong-based newspaper, reported that Chinese officials were aware of 381 cases, but by January 11, 2020, the officials claimed only 41 cases of infection had been confirmed.

Also in February, a leaked internal Chinese document revealed that coronavirus infections is 52 times higher than reported in China’s Shandong Province. According the leaked document posted on a Chinese website, weibo.cn, the novel coronavirus mutates at an average of about two mutations per month. On February 22, Chinese government publicly stated that there was 1 new confirmed case in Shandong, with a cumulative 750 confirmed cases, but the internal document said that 61 patients were diagnosed with the virus that day.