Opinion: China’s false reports are hurting the fight against coronavirus

On March 26th, the United States reported the most COVID-19 cases in the world.

81,321 Americans have the Coronavirus along with 1,000 deaths surpassing China, Italy or any other country has seen, according to data gathered by the New York Times.

Since then, China has been reporting the number of cases in their country has decreased and the recovery rate has increased.

China has publicly reported about 82,000 cases and 3,300 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

As a result of this, political pundits, doctors, experts in epidemiology, and the State Department officials looked to China to see how they responded to the widespread pandemic and why their response was effective. However, upon future investigation, they concluded the recent reports conducted by China on the number of COVID-19 cases were falsified.

According to Johns Hopkins, China hid the extent of the coronavirus outbreak in their country, under-reporting total cases and deaths from the virus, a U.S. intelligence community concluded in a classified report to the White House.

Furthermore, leading up to the investigation, activities within China suggested a greater number of deaths than reported.

The New York Post reported Wuhan’s reported death toll of 2,535 may be understated by a factor of 20. China reported seven mortuaries were handling 500 funeral urns a day for weeks. However, one shipment contained 5,000 urns in just two days.

To add on, this was not the doing of only the Chinese government, the World Health Organization has also been receiving criticism from pundits.

The director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus should be held responsible for his reckless response. Tedros turned a neglected what happened in Wuhan and the rest of China and corroborated with China to lie about the severity of the COVID-19 outbreak, according to the Hill.

Recently, more countries have been suspected of falsifying reports and covering up cases.

Bloomberg also mentioned Western officials have pointed to Iran, Russia, Indonesia, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt which has not reported a single case of the disease, as hiding their figures.

The Chinese government is currently under scrutiny from major nations and is urged to be transparent in a time of crisis. The leaders of every nation must report their actual figures and not lie on the world stage. To procure a cure or vaccine, we should strongly insist nations not deceive.

When the virus is rooted out and the world begins spinning again, we should focus on what separates our nations. Ideology, government structure, economy, and liberty may define our differences, but, as of now, the leaders of the nation must unite against a common enemy.