With hundreds of thousands of COVID-19 cases in Shanghai, Chinese health authorities reported only 25 coronavirus deaths. An AP study of the death toll sheds light on how the figures have been obscured by the way Chinese officials tally virus statistics.
Further adding to the confusion, the city has overlapping systems to track whether someone has the virus. City residents primarily rely on what’s called their Health Cloud, a mobile application that allows them to see their COVID-19 test results. However, the Shanghai health authorities have a separate system to track COVID-19 test results, and they have the sole authority to confirm cases. At times, the data between the systems conflict.
Statements from the authorities are little comfort to the relatives of the dead. Chinese internet users, doubting the official figures, have built a virtual archive of the deaths that have occurred since Shanghai’s lockdown based on firsthand information posted online.Chinese media reports on the unrecorded COVID-19 deaths have been swiftly censored, and many criticisms of Shanghai’s stringent measures expunged online.
Others skeptical of the data include relatives of Zong Shan, an 86-year-old former Russian translator who died March 29. Despite testing positive and being moved to a government quarantine facility, online test results showed Zong supposedly was negative for COVID-19 on the day of her death. “They gave me very vague answers. One minute they said it was stroke, then they said this was also just a hypothesis,” said the relative. “But on one point, they were very clear, they said it had nothing to do with COVID. Her lungs were clear.”