Epidemic Tracker In China May Have Accidentally Leaked Real Data On Wuhan Virus Deaths — And They’re Bad

Tencent, a multinational conglomerate holding company in China, may have accidentally leaked the real data on the Wuhan virus.

The real spread and death toll of the coronavirus is unknown, as China controls all information on the deadly pneumonia-like virus. But some interesting numbers recently appeared that might give a real clue to its spread.

“On late Saturday evening (Feb. 1), Tencent, on its webpage titled ‘Epidemic Situation Tracker,’ showed confirmed cases of novel coronavirus (2019nCoV) in China as standing at 154,023, 10 times the official figure at the time. It listed the number of suspected cases as 79,808, four times the official figure,” Taiwan News reported.

The number of cured cases was only 269, well below the official number that day of 300. Most ominously, the death toll listed was 24,589, vastly higher than the 300 officially listed that day.

But that report didn’t last long.

“Moments later, Tencent updated the numbers to reflect the government’s ‘official’ numbers that day. Netizens noticed that Tencent has on at least three occasions posted extremely high numbers, only to quickly lower them to government-approved statistics,” the news site reported.

Theories quickly emerged about the differing numbers. Some speculated that Tencent has two sets of data, the “real data” and “processed” data., and that some sort of coding problem caused the  “real” data to accidentally appear on its webpage.

Others speculate that the numbers are even worse than Tencent said, noting that as the virus sweeps across rural parts of China, many coronavirus patients die outside of hospitals and are thus not counted.

A U.S. site connected to Johns Hopkins put the numbers far lower, with 24,631 infected, 494 dead and 1,029 “recovered.”

Take a look at the worldwide map here.

 

 

 

 

 

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