China just raised its coronavirus death toll by 50 percent in Wuhan

China has increased its coronavirus death toll by 50% in Wuhan, where the pandemic originated, media outlets reported.

Chinese officials said the toll was now 3,869 deaths on Friday, up 1,290 from its previous tally, according to The New York Times. Confirmed cases also increased to 50,333, up 325 cases, the outlet reported. The Wall Street Journal also confirmed the increase.

“Officials explained that the deaths had initially gone uncounted because in the early stages of the pandemic some people died at home, overwhelmed medics were focused on treating cases rather than reporting deaths and due to a delay in collecting figures from various government and private organizations,” according to CNN, which also reported the increase in COVID-19 deaths.

China has been accused of hiding coronavirus numbers and the extent of the oubreak, according to Time.

Chinese officials have rejected the claims that the county suppressed information about the virus, Time reported.

“Some U.S. officials just want to shift the blame,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said, according to the outlet. “Actually we don’t want to fall into an argument with them, but faced with such repeated moral slander by them, I feel compelled to take some time and clarify the truth again.”

Early coronavirus patients were connected to an animal market in China and the virus was spread from animal to person, according to The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

There are more than 2 million confirmed cases globally, according to Johns Hopkins University.

“They are on the defensive, clearly,” Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a political science professor at Hong Kong Baptist University and a Chinese politics expert, told The New York Times. “It’s an uphill battle now for China to improve its image.”

This story was originally published April 17, 2020 at 11:09 AM with the headline "China just raised its coronavirus death toll by 50 percent in Wuhan."