By Uche Mbah
Indications are that China was being economical with the truth when they claim that 3,000 Chinese died of the dreaded coronavirus.
Chinese press had reported more than 81,000 infections with 3,300 deaths.
China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) March 19 announced the number of phone users in each Chinese province. Both cell phone users and landline users dropped significantly with the number of users increasing from 1.600957 billion to 1.579927 billion, which is 21.03 million less. Landline users were said to have dropped from 190.83 million to 189.99 million, or 0.84 million less. In the same period the year before, the number of accounts had increased.
In a classified report by US Intelligence Officials quoted by Web.Archive.org, allege that 20.9 million Chinese due to coronavirus.
But this allegation was quickly rejected by the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying who said China had been “open and transparent” about the outbreak. She accused Washington of trying to “shift the blame.”
But the US officials were adamant, insisting that the number of phones closed was as a result of deaths via coronavirus.
“Cell phones are an indispensable part of life in China and it is only closed when the user is dead”, the report said.
“The digitization level is very high in China. People can’t survive without a cell phone,” Tang Jingyuan, a U.S.-based China Affairs commentator told The Epoch Times on March 21. “Dealing with the government for pensions and social security, buying train tickets, shopping… no matter what people want to do, they are required to use cell phones.”
