Wuhan Covid-19 death toll 50% higher than previously thought

The increase is due to previous mistakes and delays.

The number of coronavirus related deaths in Wuhan has been revised to 3,869, a 50 percent increase on the previous figure of 2,579.

The change is due to previous mistakes, omissions and delays, China’s state news agency Xinhua reported.

The first cases of Covid-19 were recorded in November 2019.

Xinhua quoted an unidentified official as saying that some hospitals were ‘overwhelmed’ at the time of the crisis, while others failed to get in contact with the disease prevention and control system in time, leading to mistaken recording of the figures.

There was also some difficulty linking information from private hospitals, temporary hospitals and other medical centres, the agency said.

The number of total cases in the city of 11 million people was also raised to 50,333, representing about two-thirds of China’s total 82,367 recorded cases.

Wuhan began to ease lockdown restrictions on March 18.

The lockdown, which had been in place since January 23, was officially lifted on April 8.