#ChinaLiedPeopleDied: Twitterati blame China for deliberately covering up Covid-19 outbreak 

Team Udayavani, Mar 21, 2020, 3:43 PM IST

With the Corona pandemic, twitter users from the entire world are blaming China for suppressing the information about the virus. In the early days, China not only deliberately covered up the outbreak of Coronavirus but also detained the doctors who tried to warn the people.

China is now facing criticism all over the world in suppressing information about the virus, doing little to contain it, and allowing it to spread unchecked in the crucial early days and weeks.

People from all over the world are expressing their anger with #ChinaLiedAndPeopleDied, condemning China for not accepting its mistake and instead blaming it on the US.

How it all started

On Dec 10, 2019, Ms. Wei, A seafood merchant in the city’s Hua’nan market started to feel sick. She ignored the symptoms thinking it was normal cold and went to a small local clinic for treatment. But 8 days later, the lady was barely conscious in a hospital bed.

This is one of the first suspected cases in a coronavirus epidemic that has paralysed China and later the world. For almost three weeks, doctors struggled to find the cause of the illness. Many patients in the city reported with same symptoms.

When doctors finally found the cause of the illness in late December, they quarantined Ms. Wei and others like her and raised the alarm to their superiors. But they were prevented by Chinese authorities from alerting their peers and public.

One of the first doctors to alert Chinese authorities was criticized for “spreading rumors” after sharing with a former medical-school classmate a test result showing a patient having Covid-19. Another doctor had to write a self-criticism letter saying his warnings “had a negative impact.”

According to sources, the Chinese government deleted lab work and samples and forced their doctors to cover up any trace of it while also lying to the World Health Organization.

China has not reported any fresh cases of coronavirus in the past few days but interestingly, it is said that three major cell phone carriers in China together, has lost almost 15 million users between Jan- Feb 2020. Twitter users are claiming that China has lied about true figures of Covid-19 victims in the past and are continuing to do so.