For the Chinese communist regime, the real death toll from any disastrous event, be it a man-made or natural disaster, is always treated as a state secret. As China battles the infection surge that followed its lifting of pandemic restrictions in early December, scientists and journalists around the world are looking for clues to the outbreak’s real death toll.
During the first weeks of the current COVID-19 outbreak, China published daily death tolls in the single digits, despite news reports showing overwhelmed hospitals, morgues, and mortuaries. Finally, on Jan. 14, China’s Health Commission dramatically revised the numbers, reporting almost 60,000 COVID-19 deaths since early December.
