pandoc loses references when converting equation environment into markdown

Question

Simple example latex, with an equation and a reference to it:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\begin{document}


\begin{equation}
\label{eq:somelabel}
e=mc^2
\end{equation}

The equation \ref{eq:somelabel} is a typical formula.


\end{document}

compiled it looks like this:

The problem is that this both the numbering and the reference is lost when I convert to md since I get something like this:

$$\label{eq:somelabel}
e=mc^2$$

The equation [\[eq:somelabel\]](#eq:somelabel){reference-type="ref"
reference="eq:somelabel"}

which is a problem because it makes the conversion later to html very ugly. Am I missing something obvious? Tried using the cross-ref filter but no to avail. Yet I know bookdown in R can deal with equation environment no problem.