source:https://nypost.com/
By Ebony BowdenMay 14, 2020 | 4:01pm | Updated
A leaked database from a Chinese military-run university suggests the country may have at least 640,000 COVID-19 cases — a figure substantially higher than Beijing’s dubious claim that it has seen just 80,000 coronavirus infections.
The virus tracker, compiled by China’s National University of Defense Technology and leaked to Foreign Policy magazine, appears to confirm fears that the nation’s Communist government is hiding the true nature of the outbreak that originated in Wuhan late last year.
According to the report, the virus tracker consists of more than 640,000 rows of cases in 230 cities ranging from early February to late April and confirms the location of each infection.
The data includes locations for hospitals, train stations, hotels, restaurants and schools and was compiled by a professor at the university that is run by China’s Central Military Commission, the report said.
China’s ruling Communist Party, which has blocked US scientists from coming to the country to study the virus, claims it has seen only 4,633 deaths and 82,929 cases as of Thursday.
These figures are considered highly untrustworthy by the international community, with the US now at 85,601 deaths and 1.4 million confirmed cases.
Suspicions that China was hiding the true scale of the outbreak were only furthered when state media last week suddenly increased the coronavirus death toll in the city of Wuhan by 50 percent.
The Chinese military data leaked to Foreign Policy could be the most comprehensive on the coronavirus outbreak in China to date.
Johns Hopkins University’s popular COVID-19 tracker relies on DXY, a social networking tool used by China’s physicians, to count infections in the secretive country.
But the cases only provide insight at the provincial level, while the tranche of data compiled by the university’s professors is incredibly specific.
According to the report, among the infections listed are two cases at a church in the northeastern capital of Harbin on March 17 and another case at a KFC restaurant in Zhenjiang on March 14.
The university has an online infection tracker but the data is vague and only shows a map of cases. The Foreign Policy report does not specify if the online tracker, not available in the US, also lists the case count as in excess of 600,000.
The leaked data is not being made publicly available.
It’s this information that US health officials have been crying out for to try to understand the nature of the pandemic which began in Wuhan in December. The Chinese government is refusing to share it.
“It can serve as a valuable trove of information for epidemiologists and public health experts around the globe — a dataset that Beijing has almost certainly not shared with US officials or doctors,” the Foreign Policy article states.
US intelligence agencies have informed the White House that they believe China undercounted its number of infections and deaths, hindering modeling efforts and leading to calls from the international community for a probe into the origins of the outbreak in December.
A damning dossier leaked from the “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance claimed China deliberately lied to the rest of the world about human-to-human transmission of COVID-19, made whistleblowers disappear, and refused to hand over samples of the virus to scientists in the West so they could make a vaccine.
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