Wuhan revises up coronavirus toll by half to cover deaths at home

Municipal government says there were misreporting problems in the early stages of the epidemic as hospitals were swamped by patients and the system was expanded rapidly

Public health experts say revisions not unexpected and indicate that more stringent measures needed to flatten the disease curve

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Wuhan residents burn paper offerings for the dead during the annual tomb-sweeping festival in early April. Photo: AFP

Published: 5:30pm, 17 Apr 2020Updated: 11:40pm, 17 Apr 2020

The central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus pandemic was first reported, has revised up its death toll to include 1,290 more people – increasing the total by roughly half.

The municipal government announced on Friday that the city’s official death toll was now 3,869. It said it initially added 1,454 coronavirus deaths but cut 164 cases that had been duplicated or were the result of other diseases.

At the same time, the number of confirmed patients in the city increased from 50,008 to 50,333. A total of 542 cases that were not reported to hospitals at the time were added, but 217 duplicates were removed from the total, the authorities said.

“The coronavirus epidemic is the fastest spreading, most sweeping public health emergency … since the founding of the People’s Republic of China,” Wuhan authorities said.

The government said the increase in the death toll was mainly because many people died at home in the early stages of the epidemic as medical facilities were overwhelmed by an influx of patients.