Government sources have announced that there have been 14,840 new cases of coronavirus in China’s Hubei province, along with 242 deaths.
In an announcement on a government website, the Chinese authorities said that they have changed how they are reporting the spread of the disease. The government is now including anyone in China’s Hubei province who has been “clinically diagnosed” with coronavirus in their figures. Of the 14,840 new cases at the epicentre of the outbreak, 13,332 of those are “clinically diagnosed.”
This is a huge spike in the numbers of diagnosed from Hubei province. On Tuesday, the Chinese government claimed that only 1,638 people were infected with coronavirus near and around Wuhan, where the disease started.
Wow shocking indeed. Especially with the 242 new deaths as well!
I updated my #COVID19 graph for the province of #Hubei. The graph says it all… pic.twitter.com/4lRtezZldF
— GHoeberX (@ghoeberx) February 12, 2020
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This spike has put a huge dent into Western predictions of the scope of the outreach. Reported cases of coronavirus were slowing down, causing some to assume the worst was an at an end. The Economist, for example, put 12,000 new cases at the high end of their “pessimistic” scenario – over 14,000 would blow that out of the water.
The Economist said 12500 new diagnoses total was the high end of the "pessimistic" scenario pic.twitter.com/Ct4N52IynC
— Edge Nibbler (@lib_crusher) February 13, 2020
It follows weeks of speculation that the Chinese government was severely under-reporting the numbers the numbers of coronavirus. With the World Health Organisation now looking further into the disease, it would make sense that the Chinese authorities would cover themselves in that situation and release more accurate figures before somebody else could challenge them.
However, this scenario would not explain the jump in the number of reported deaths. Only 94 new deaths were reported in Hubei on Tuesday – the extreme jump of another 242 deaths in 24 hours is far harder to put down to a cover-up.
The huge jump is caused by the fact that #COVID19 in China reports will now include "clinical diagnosed". Before they were left out of the reports.
To me however, it's puzzling that this also has a huge effect to the amount of deaths due to the #Wuhan #Coronavirus.. pic.twitter.com/eyrIcmWnla— GHoeberX (@ghoeberx) February 12, 2020
According to the Chinese government, 33,693 patients are being treated in hospital at this time.
