In a major snub to the Chinese government, the United Kingdom deleted the coronavirus death toll figures from China to express its outrage over the allegation that Beijing has been involved in covering up the real figures.
Downing Street will no longer include any coronavirus data belonging to China to be part of its official list of coronavirus cases including COVID 19 deaths in other countries.
Earlier, the UK Coronavirus graph showed the death rates of nine countries the UK, USA, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Sweden, South Korea, and China. But the China figures have been missing since April 23, the MailOnline reported.
This is the latest diplomatic attack launched against China. Last week,.German Chancellor Angela Merkel asked China to be as transparent as possible about the coronavirus outbreak after critics accused the country of downplaying the scale of the outbreak when it first emerged late last year.
There is a widespread belief that the Wuhan lab has played a key role in the spread of the deadly coronavirus that causes COVID 19 disease.
France and the UK both have been pressing China for more answers. French President Emmanuel Macron told the Financial Times it would be "naive" to think China had handled the pandemic well, adding: "There are clearly things that have happened that we don't know about."
While British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said China will face "hard questions" about the coronavirus outbreak, namely "how it came about and how it couldn't have been stopped earlier".
Australia meanwhile has called for an independent investigation into the global response to the pandemic, including the World Health Organization's handling of the crisis.
While the Chinese state machinery has claimed that only 3,212 people have died of the new coronavirus, Wuhan residents have put the figure to be over 40,000.
A recent video out of Wuhan that showed workers disposing of mobile phones of dead coronavirus victims, the clip once again reignited a conspiracy that hinted that a number of people had died in the region.
Coronavirus toll
As per the latest figures, a total of 206,133 people have died so far from the coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak.
There are currently 2,976,940 confirmed cases in 210 countries and territories. Currently, the United States has the most number of fatalities (54,958), followed by Italy (26,644) and Spain (23,190). Coronavirus has killed 22,856 people in France.
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