Since January, China has officially recorded more than 81,000 cases of COVID-19 and at least 3,200 deaths, mostly in and around the city of Wuhan however there are doubts over the accuracy of the figures and the UK Government stopped using Beijing’s numbers as a comparison (Picture: Getty Images )

China’s official coronavirus death toll has been removed from the UK Government’s graphs amid growing accusations that Beijing is covering up the true impact of the tragedy.

Officially there have been 4,632 Covid-19 related deaths in China, where the virus first broke out in December.

That figure is a tiny fraction compared with the devastation wrought in Europe and the US, with a global death toll at more than 200,000.

A Downing Street graph on Wednesday showed the death rates of nine countries the UK, USA, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Sweden, South Korea, and China.


On Thursday China was removed from the updated timeline



Death rates in Germany, Sweden, and South Korea have so far held under the 5,000 mark. The current tolls for America, France, and the UK are 53,745, 22,614, and 20,319 (as of yesterday).

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Donald Trump has already attacked China for misrepresenting its figures as he argues that America does not have the highest numbers of fatalities and speculation about Beijing’s information has remained from the start of the pandemic, after reports emerged of doctors and journalists detained after raising alarms.

In Wuhan, the city at the epicentre of the outbreak, officials revised the number of dead up by a further 1,290 in a single day to move the total up to 3,869, citing overstretched hospitals as the reason for the mistake.

Reports of people queuing to collect loved-ones’ remains and incinerators working ’round the clock’ conflict with the official figures (Picture: Getty Images)

Other sources say the true toll since December in the city could be as many as 42,000 dead.

Wuhan residents, speaking to Radio Free Asia, doubt official figures.

One said: ‘It can’t be right because the incinerators have been working round the clock, so how can so few people have died?’

Another added: ‘They transferred cremation workers from around China to Wuhan to keep (cremating) bodies around the clock.’

It comes as photos show stacks of urns being delivered to funeral homes and people queuing to collect loved ones’ remains.

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