Coronavirus has emerged as severe issue overtime for the whole world, with no proper treatment available, the virus has so far resulted in deaths of 12,000 people all over the globe. Italy leads the chart with 4,000+ deaths, followed by China where 3,255 people have been declared dead so far. With a mortality rate of 11%, the virus has been labeled as Global Health Emergency by WHO.

As cases continue to spike all across the globe, a tabloid has claimed that Chinese officials are hiding real facts from the other countries, and the number of people who have died from the deadly virus is over 10 Million.

The tabloid seeks the help of network service providers of China to prove itself. The tabloid claims,

“Chinese mobile companies have reported that before January 2020, the number of its users was consistently increasing but between the period of January to March, when Coronavirus struck the nation hard, the service providers have lost more than 1 crore 50 lakh of its active customers.

The tabloid further claims,  “among these over 80 lakh customers were those who used the mobile network on a daily basis. Where have they gone? No one knows! 

The tabloid didn’t stop its mission for investigative journalism here, further, it states,

“15 million i.e. over 1 crore 50 lakh customers who were active previously have stepped down from the networks, their mobiles have stopped, and no one is using those mobile phones.”

The next point the tabloid has stated is quite serious and horrifying,

“If 15 million active mobile numbers are now deactivated or are not in use then one can certainly not deny the fact that the number of dead people should be in lakhs, it is a fact that people tend to use more than one mobile or sim cards, considering a person is using 2 sim cards, the number of people breaks down to 75 Lakhs, also considering if each person holds 4 sim cards, the number of people dead should be 37 Lakh 50 Thousand, and that is surely not a number the Chinese officials have reported.”

The tabloid ends its report by adding yet another astonishing fact,

“Moreover, people have reported that there are a million people who are currently missing in China after the Coronavirus outbreak, and one who is alive can not see lights in the apartments in Wuhan city.”

Now, is the report from the tabloid fake or real? The tabloid starts its report stating that the media in China is not free and is completely handled by the government. The sentence establishes a great trust between the reader and the writer of the article in its very first line.

Contrasting on the statement that the media has not reported the real numbers, we can certainly agree that the government might hold control over the media but not over its citizens, and in the year like 2020, when social networks like Twitter, Facebook, and WhatsApp are available on the fingertips of each and every person, if anything like this would be happening in China it would have been reported by someone a very long time ago, but surely none of the survivors have reported anything like this yet.

Currently, China has reported a total of 3,255 deaths with no new cases detected in Wuhan in the last 48 hours.

Claim: Coronavirus Has Claimed Over 10 Million Lives In China And The Chinese Government Is Hiding The Real Facts

Result: FALSE

Claimed By: Dailynv

Fact Check By :thebuzzpaper