Disturbing Chinese government statistics reveal a huge drop in the number of old people receiving state payments in Hubei – the province containing the city of Wuhan – in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic’s eruption.
The official data, which shows a fall of more than 150,000 people receiving the benefits in the first quarter of last year, will fuel fears the death toll from Covid-19 in China was far higher than the government has admitted.
According to the Chinese authorities, there have been only 4,636 Covid deaths in their nation of 1.4 billion – with all except 124 of the fatalities in the central province of Hubei. There is widespread scepticism over these figures.
