21 Million Fewer Cellphone Users in China. Did they all died due to the CCP-virus?

 

As stated by the Beijing authorities, there was a significant drop in the number of Chinese phone users in the past three months. Precisely, an average of 21 million Chinese people are known to dissociate from using cellphones.

An area of bothering is the impact of cellphones in the life of many China residents. It’s a known fact that cellphones have become the everyday part of people living in China. In fact, Tang Jingyuan, a U.S.-based China affairs commentator noted that there is a high level of digitization in China. People needs cellphone to perform lots of transactions online.

As noted by the commentator, dealing with the government for pensions and social security, buying train tickets, shopping … no matter what people want to do, they are required to use cellphones.

Furthermore, Chinese people’s bank accounts and social security accounts are bundled with their cellphone plans; apps on Chinese phones check SIM cards against the state’s database to make sure the number belongs to the user.

Such a development is worrisome, especially at this hard time when government is trying all possible ways to avoid the spread of diseases. On March 10th, Beijing first launched cellphone-based health codes. The development necessitated everyone in China to install an app on their phone and also register their personal health information. Such codes are intended to avoid the spread of the CCP-virus, commonly known as novel coronavirus. So, using cellphone at this period is more relevant and important.

The big question is here is whether the dramatic drop in cellphone accounts shows the account closings of those who have died due to the CCP-virus.

But Tangs gave an insight into such question. As stated by him, “It’s possible that some migrant workers had two cellphone numbers before. One is from their hometown, and the other is from the city they work in. In February, they might close the number in the city they work in because they couldn’t go there”.

Typically, migrant workers would have gone to their home city for the Chinese New Year in January, and then travel restrictions would have prevented them from returning to the city where they held a job.