CHINA-The internet is full of speculation after nearly 2.1 million cell phones in China went silent during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Some conspiracy theorists believe that mass shutdown was because 2.1 million people died in China. Here’s one theory that is circulating on the internet.
Bloomberg News, run by former Democrat candidate Michael Bloomberg has another theory.
“China Mobile subscriptions fell by more than 8 million over January and February, data on the company’s website show. China Unicom Hong Kong Ltd. subscribers fell by 7.8 million in the period, while China Telecom Corp. has said it lost 5.6 million users last month,” Bloomberg reported. “Part of the drop could be caused by migrant workers — who often have one subscription for where they work and another for their home region — canceling their work-region account after the virus prevented them from returning to work after the Lunar New Year holidays that began in late January.”
Is China Hiding a COVID-19 Death Toll of 2.1 Million People?
“It is possible that the nationwide lockdown in February was the reason behind the drop in the numbers of landline users as many companies were shut down, the quarantine scenario can’t be a reason behind the drop in the cell phone users,” reported International Business Times. “It is possible that these workers may have gone to their home city for the Chinese New Year and after the travel ban, they did not get a chance to come back to China.”
On Snopes, the conspiracy is listed as “Unproven”, not true, but not false.
Photo by Omid Armin@omidarmin.