WHO CLAIMS 'ALL COUNTRIES WILL FACE THIS...' AFTER CHINA ADMITS 'MISSTEP IN DEATH TOLL'

The World Health Organization (WHO) recently said that many countries will follow China in revising or updating their death counts once the coronavirus crisis comes under control. WHO's statement comes after Wuhan, admitted missteps in recording its death toll. As they had abruptly raised the city's count by 50 percent after doubts were raised about Chinese transparency over the outbreak.

As per news agency AFP report, authorities in Wuhan initially tried to cover up the outbreak and many punished doctors for raising an alarm online. "This is something that is a challenge in an ongoing outbreak: to identify all of your cases and all of your deaths," Maria van Kerkhove, the WHO's COVID-19 technical lead, told at a press conference in Geneva.

"I would anticipate that many countries are going to be in a similar situation where they will have to go back and review records and look to see: did we capture all of them?," she further added.

Looking at their stats, Wuhan added 1,290 deaths to its number of deaths and raised the total to 3,869, while bringing the number of infections to 50,333.

Meanwhile, WHO's COVID-19 technical lead said that because Wuhan's healthcare system was flooded with patients, many died at home while others at makeshift facilities. Michael Ryan, the WHO's emergencies director, added: "All countries will face this".

He also urged nations to provide exact data because that keeps us alert of what the impact is, and also allows us to project forward in a much more accurate way.