OFFICIALS IN THE Chinese city where the coronavirus originated revised the death toll from the pandemic, adding nearly 1,300 more fatalities.

The Wuhan Municipal Headquarters for COVID-19 Epidemic Prevention and Control reported on Friday that an additional 1,290 people died from COVID-19 in the city, and an additional 325 people contracted the virus.

The revision brings the total number of deaths in Wuhan to 3,869, a 50% increase from the previously reported death toll of 2,579. The figures raise the number of cases of the virus in the city to 50,333. Before the updated numbers were published, China's Health Ministry reported 82,367 cases and 3,342 deaths as of Friday morning.

The Wuhan headquarters for the pandemic said the "data discrepancies" are due to the surging numbers of patients at the beginning of the outbreak that overwhelmed medical resources and the admission capacity of medical institutions. Some patients died from the virus at home without having been treated at hospitals.

Additionally, at the peak of the outbreak in Wuhan, hospitals were operating beyond their capacities and medical personnel were "preoccupied with saving and treating patients, resulting in belated, missed and mistaken reporting."

Third, the headquarters said, because of how quickly the outbreak spread out of control and the country needed to establish additional medical facilities, some of those facilities were not linked to the epidemic information network and failed to report their data in time.

Lastly, the agency said, the information of some of the deceased patients was incomplete or the reporting contained repetitions and mistakes.

This isn't the first time China has revised its numbers of cases or deaths. The way the cases were counted has changed several times, and experts have raised concerns over how the country counts asymptomatic cases.

The new discrepancy in Wuhan's data raises more questions about how China handled the coronavirus pandemic and is sure to bring a new wave of skepticism regarding the country's numbers. Beijing has been criticized internationally for its initial response and lack of transparency.

The Chinese government has repeatedly denied accusations that it purposefully withheld and covered up information or was too slow responding to the outbreak. And while President Donald Trump first praised China's response, he has since accused the country of a "lack of transparency" and pulled U.S. funding from the World Health Organization, saying it was too "China centric."

Once the epicenter of the outbreak, the pandemic moved to Europe, hitting Italy and Spain particularly hard before spreading rapidly in the U.S. Health officials report more than 2.17 million cases of the coronavirus globally and more than 146,070 people have died.

The U.S. also revised its numbers earlier this month when New York added deaths that were presumed to be from the coronavirus but that had never been tested dating back to March 11. Officials added more than 3,700 probable deaths to the toll. New York has nearly 223,700 cases and more than 14,830 people have died.