Fact Checked: Did 21 Million People in China Die from Coronavirus?

by Kara Machowski

A rumor has been circulating over the past couple of days since the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology published figures showing a drop of about 21 million cellphone users and 840,000 landline users, that 21 million people had passed away due to complications from Covid-19. “21 Million Fewer Cellphone Users in China May Suggest a High CCP Virus Death Toll,” proclaimed a headline in The Epoch Times.

There have also reports of 10,000 urns being sent to Wuhan, who only reported about 3,000 deaths. It seems plausible since so many sources have accused China in misreporting the number of infected and those who passed away from coronavirus, I mean, even the president has thrown this idea around during numerous white house briefings, but did 21 million people really die? Well, one American who was stuck in a hotel room for 14 days, only allowed to be served by a person in a full-on hazmat suit said that he’s sick of bullshit misinformation like that.

Another colleague who was locked down in Zhejiang and is now in Beijing did not report of any deaths that were not reported by officials. They did comment on the fact that one hospital in Wuhan was ill-prepared with PPE and thus saw an influx in cases amongst staffers and even lost a few due to Covid. While the possibility of numbers being skewed is obvious since we can’t particularly report correct statistics in America.

As of right now, China is requiring its citizens to download an app to their cellphones which essentially either clears them to roam freely around the city or lets them know that they must remain on lockdown by giving them either a green, yellow or red barcode, indicating their health risk. The software and cell phone is even required as an entry key into certain public buildings. So why would 21 million people cancel their cell phone plans in such a time that they are so essential?

This theory was first brought to light when Bloomberg published an article on March 23, announcing the loss of China Mobile’s millions of subscribers. A Stanford C. Bernstein & Co analyst theorized a major part of the drop in cell phone subscribers was due to migrant workers who have one cell phone for business and a personal in their home area code and when the virus struck and work stopped they cancelled their work phone subscription. While a loss of 21 million subscribers seems like a high number, its really only a small percentage of China’s 1.3 million cell phone users.

One major fact is that if 21 million people died of coronavirus, with the current statistics of between 3-7% mortality rate, then the number of infected would have to be just above or below 2 billion people, which is way more than the 1.3 billion that actually live in China. If everyone in China became infected, I assure you, we all would know about it. The original article posted by web.archive.org and written by James Alami, whose article’s title actually read “21 Million Chinese Died of Coronavirus” has since been fact checked and was said to be false and has even been slapped with a false banner when it appears on Facebook.