If Chinese government authorities are to be believed, the new coronavirus thought to have originated within its city of Wuhan in 2019 has largely run its course in China and, contrary to worst-case estimates, only a few thousand people died from the COVID-19 disease.
Of course, the Chinese regime can’t exactly be trusted completely as virtually all “official” information coming out of the country is carefully controlled propaganda designed to promote the Communist Party’s preferred narratives, with information that reflects unfavorably on the regime often being suppressed or countered.
However, it appears that one particular piece of official information slipped past the censors that might contradict the “official” death toll from the coronavirus: an unfathomable and difficult-to-explain decline by about 21 million in the number of mobile phone users in China, according to The Epoch Times.
Surrogate who refused abortion asks SCOTUS to intervene as baby could be moved out of Texas
Georgia mayor, 23, ousted 10 months after making history as state’s youngest mayor
Republicans Attack GOP Candidate for Pointing Out How Many Foreign Students Attended Texas-Ohio State Game
Breaking: SCOTUS Blocks Trump’s Mail-in Ballot Restrictions Months Before Midterms
‘Trojan horses’ in America: Congress probes influence networks tied to China, Iran and Cuba
House Dems face Trump tariff dilemma as major Russia sanctions bill heads to floor
Supreme Court rejects Trump bid to revive strict mail-ballot rules before midterms
Trump Gives Huge Update on Russia-Ukraine War That Could Ease Pain at the Gas Pumps
GOP Gov. Candidate Forced to Swim for His Life After Plane Crash – Reporter Says Water Was ‘Only 30 Feet’ Deep
Saudi Arabia appeals to US as pipeline closure and Houthis spike oil prices
Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed says leaders must address ‘unpaid debts’ to Black communities
Elon Musk PAC Steps Up with Big Bucks to Fund Key Swing-State Races
Ex-Dem insider exposes what Harris told top donors days before Biden dropped out: ‘Insulting’
Breaking Video: Police Gathered at Mitch McConnell’s Residence – Comes After 95 Days Away from Senate, Questions About Health Concerns
Mitch McConnell casts first Senate vote since June fall
“The digitization level is very high in China. People can’t survive without a cell phone.”
Real death count in China? Over 21 million cell phone accounts in #China were canceled in the past 3 months — #CCPVirus deaths may have contributed to the number. https://t.co/GzNazZPQt7
— The Epoch Times – China Insider (@EpochTimesChina) March 22, 2020
First, The Times took a moment to explain just how ubiquitous mobile phones are among the Chinese people, given that they are needed to do just about anything in that country.
Indeed, all cellphones are registered and connected to their user’s identity and are required for using everything from bank accounts to bus tickets and employment to shopping, among countless other day-to-day activities. Recently, the regime even linked health codes — red for infected, yellow for suspected infection and green for healthy — to every single mobile user as a means to help track the spread of the coronavirus.
Given the reported indispensable nature of mobile phones in Chinese society, consider a standard quarterly report released in mid-March by the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology that documents the number of active cellphone and landline accounts in the country over the past three months.
Surrogate who refused abortion asks SCOTUS to intervene as baby could be moved out of Texas
Georgia mayor, 23, ousted 10 months after making history as state’s youngest mayor
Republicans Attack GOP Candidate for Pointing Out How Many Foreign Students Attended Texas-Ohio State Game
Breaking: SCOTUS Blocks Trump’s Mail-in Ballot Restrictions Months Before Midterms
‘Trojan horses’ in America: Congress probes influence networks tied to China, Iran and Cuba
House Dems face Trump tariff dilemma as major Russia sanctions bill heads to floor
Supreme Court rejects Trump bid to revive strict mail-ballot rules before midterms
Trump Gives Huge Update on Russia-Ukraine War That Could Ease Pain at the Gas Pumps
GOP Gov. Candidate Forced to Swim for His Life After Plane Crash – Reporter Says Water Was ‘Only 30 Feet’ Deep
Saudi Arabia appeals to US as pipeline closure and Houthis spike oil prices
Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed says leaders must address ‘unpaid debts’ to Black communities
Elon Musk PAC Steps Up with Big Bucks to Fund Key Swing-State Races
Ex-Dem insider exposes what Harris told top donors days before Biden dropped out: ‘Insulting’
Breaking Video: Police Gathered at Mitch McConnell’s Residence – Comes After 95 Days Away from Senate, Questions About Health Concerns
Mitch McConnell casts first Senate vote since June fall
According to the MIIT report, as compared with the previous report released in November, the number of mobile phone accounts had declined by roughly 21.03 million, from about 1.6 billion to 1.57 billion. Over the same time, landline accounts decreased by about 840,000, from 190.83 million to 189.99 million.
During a similar period a year ago, however — December 2018 to February 2019 — mobile phone accounts had increased by about 24 million, from 1.55 billion to 1.58 billion. Likewise, landlines had increased over that time frame by about 6.6 million, from 183.4 million to 190.1 million.
Meanwhile, China’s population was estimated to have grown from the end of 2018 to the end of 2019 by roughly 4.67 million people, for an estimated total population of 1.4 billion.
To be sure, there might be some legitimate reasons for the steep decline in the numbers of active phone accounts over the past few months, particularly for landlines, given the strict lockdowns that were imposed across the country, especially in Wuhan and other cities with major outbreaks. Those lockdowns forced the closure of the vast majority of businesses, most of which use landlines that may have been canceled or deactivated.
That doesn’t explain the decrease in cellphone accounts, though, and The Times dug into the data provided for the three major mobile phone providers in the country — China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom.
Surrogate who refused abortion asks SCOTUS to intervene as baby could be moved out of Texas
Georgia mayor, 23, ousted 10 months after making history as state’s youngest mayor
Republicans Attack GOP Candidate for Pointing Out How Many Foreign Students Attended Texas-Ohio State Game
Breaking: SCOTUS Blocks Trump’s Mail-in Ballot Restrictions Months Before Midterms
‘Trojan horses’ in America: Congress probes influence networks tied to China, Iran and Cuba
House Dems face Trump tariff dilemma as major Russia sanctions bill heads to floor
Supreme Court rejects Trump bid to revive strict mail-ballot rules before midterms
Trump Gives Huge Update on Russia-Ukraine War That Could Ease Pain at the Gas Pumps
GOP Gov. Candidate Forced to Swim for His Life After Plane Crash – Reporter Says Water Was ‘Only 30 Feet’ Deep
Saudi Arabia appeals to US as pipeline closure and Houthis spike oil prices
Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed says leaders must address ‘unpaid debts’ to Black communities
Elon Musk PAC Steps Up with Big Bucks to Fund Key Swing-State Races
Ex-Dem insider exposes what Harris told top donors days before Biden dropped out: ‘Insulting’
Breaking Video: Police Gathered at Mitch McConnell’s Residence – Comes After 95 Days Away from Senate, Questions About Health Concerns
Mitch McConnell casts first Senate vote since June fall
The largest carrier, China Mobile, reported a decline of more than 8 million accounts over January and February after having gained roughly 3.7 million users in December and about 3.5 million users in the first two months of 2019.
China Telecom, the second-largest provider, reported losing slightly more than 6 million users in January and February. But the company had gained more than a million accounts in December, and had increased by more than 7 million in the early months of 2019.
The data for the third-largest carrier, China Unicom, was incomplete, but it nonetheless showed a decrease of nearly 1.2 million in January, as compared with an increase of around 5 million users in the first two months of 2019.
The communist regime has sought to explain away the steep decline in mobile phone accounts as being attributable to the shutdowns, which could have prompted migrant workers and students locked down in their home towns to get rid of extra phones linked to the place they worked or attended school.
Additionally, the sharp economic downturn that resulted from the lockdown could also prompted other citizens to ditch spare phones that must be paid for every month.
That said, even if those excuses were legitimate, it is hard to believe that at least some of the now nonexistent mobile phone accounts weren’t canceled or deactivated due to the account holder having died from the coronavirus.
Even if death from the virus accounted for only 10 percent of the 21 million missing accounts, that would be about 2.1 million who died.
The communist regime has maintained that the death toll from the coronavirus is a tiny fraction of that — about 3,300 — but as noted before, that is difficult to believe.
We may never know for sure why roughly 21 million mobile phone accounts suddenly disappeared in January and February, but odds are, a portion of them were the result of coronavirus deaths that occurred far in excess of what the Chinese Communist Party is willing to publicly admit.
Story cited here.
