Wuhan coronavirus numbers far higher than Chinese authorities give

kcorcoran@businessinsider.com (Kieran Corcoran)

• A new study suggests that official figures for the scale of the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak have been far too low.
• The study, published in the prestigious Lancet journal, projected that as of January 25, there were 75,815 people infected in Wuhan. At the time the official figure was 761.
• The study also projected that the epidemic will double in size every 6.4 days.
• It dismissed a lockdown in Wuhan as “negligible,” since the virus had already spread by the time it was implemented.
• Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

The true number of people infected with the deadly Wuhan coronavirus is more than 75,000, according to a scientific model, which claims the official number for those infected is far too low.

Academics at the University of Hong Kong published a paper on Friday in The Lancet, a prestigious medical journal, estimating the rate at which the virus is spreading.

It used official data on the number of infections to calculate what it said was the true extent of the disease — almost 100 times the official figures.

Underpinning the analysis is the idea that the number of international cases is disproportionately high given the number of people who travel from Wuhan to other countries. to read more, click here