The National Health Commission (NHC) confirmed this Sunday, December 25, that China of will not publish the daily figures of cases and deaths from Covid-19,, in a context of growing concern about the contagion boom that has precipitated the collapse of crematoria and health centers.
Indeed, the country’s crematoriums have been fully active since China abandoned the restrictions covid zeroalthough the authorities still they insist that only seven people would have died since the lockdowns were lifted.
“From today, we will no longer publish daily information about the epidemic”reported the NHC, without explaining the causes of the new measure implemented.
The end of strict confinement, combined with the uncontrollably rising contagion curve, made it practically impossible to detect the number of cases.
“The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will publish information about the outbreak for reference and research purposes“, the health agency expanded, without specifying the type or frequency of the data that the CDC will publish.
Adverse reactions to the new measure in China
The population in China received the recent regulations with disappointment, due to the great discrepancy they perceive between official statistics and infections within their families and social circles.
“They’re finally waking up and realizing they can’t fool people anymore”exposed a citizen on the Weibo social network.
In line with this statement, another user opined: “This was the biggest and best fake statistics manufacturing office in the country”.
While state media have largely ignored the huge numbers of deceased arriving at crematoria, they have to some extent maintained that hospitals are under pressure due to the influx of patients and the shortage of medicines against fever.
The official statistics were also questioned by the new methodological changeaccording to which only people who have died directly from Covid-related respiratory failure are counted as dead from the virus.
As China grapples with its first national wave of Covid-19, emergency rooms in small cities and towns across the country are facing serious difficulties.
The Chinese government has reported just seven deaths from Covid-19 since restrictions were dramatically relaxed on December 7, pushing the number up. death toll to 5241.
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“You Can’t Burn Them All”
While the Chinese population mistrusts the announced figures, a funeral home worker confirmed to journalists that the crematoriums would be overwhelmed by the number of deaths: “They work day and night, but they can’t burn them all”.
In order to make it easier for fever patients to receive proper medical treatment and ensure the medical needs of residents, some hospitals in Beijing have established impromptu fever clinics in gyms to provide immediate care services that include diagnosis, prescription issuance and medication dispensing.
Experts have predicted between one million and two million deaths in China next yearand the World Health Organization raised alarms after stating that Beijing’s way of counting “would underestimate the true number of deaths.”
According to statistics, even 250 million people contracted Covid in the first 20 days of December in China, according to estimates by the country’s health authorities.
Sun Yang, deputy director of the CCDC, revealed the latest figures at a health briefing held last Wednesday.
included 37 million people that they would have been infected only on Tuesday, that is, about 2.6% of the country’s population.
The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said that at this point the 18% of the population was infectedafter Beijing announced the change to its controversial Covid-zero policy last month.
Full morgues and hospitals: the visible face of the pandemic chaos
Hospitals have been overwhelmed in the past month and morgues have filled up, despite official figures suggesting cases were declining due to suspension of testing.
In the southwest of Beijing, hospitals are overwhelmed to the point that intensive care units refuse ambulancesthe relatives of the sick are desperately looking for open beds and the patients are distributed collapsed on the benches of the hospital corridors, in some cases lying on the floor for lack of beds.
Yao Ruyan, whose elderly mother-in-law fell ill a week ago, pilgrimage from hospital to hospital, only to be denied time and time againaccording to the agency AP.
“I’m furious,” Yao said, crying helplessly and holding lung X-rays from the local hospital.
“I don’t have much hope”he warned after corroborating the full rooms of the different health centers visited. “She’s having trouble breathing”.
In recent days, state media headlines claimed that Hebei province, where one of the first outbreaks of infections occurred after the state eased controls in November and December, is “beginning to resume normal life.” .
However, the unprecedented activity of the emergency rooms and crematoria in central Hebei would indicate otherwise.
Many of Hebei’s elderly are in critical conditionwhich could be taken as an indication of what will happen in the rest of China.
At Baoding No. 2 Hospital in Zhuozhou, patients They took over the corridor of the emergency room last Wednesday. Several of them were breathing with the assistance of respirators. A woman mourned after doctors told her of the death of a loved one.
In the Zhuozhou crematorium they work overtime to cope with the increasing volume of deaths in the last week, according to an employee of the establishment.
In regards to approximate figures per crematorium, a funeral home worker estimated that he would be burning 20 to 30 bodies per daycompared to three or four before the Covid-19 measures were relaxed.
“There have been so many people dying”graphed Zhao Yongsheng, a worker at a funeral goods shop set up near a local hospital.
The risk of new variants
Professor Martin McKee, a public health expert at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, assured that the scenario in China could worsen, with the emergence of new strains in the immediate
McKee detailed his reasoning to the newspaper. MailOnline: “The pandemic is far from over. And we’re still seeing almost 1,300 people in hospital with Covid in England every day, at a time when the NHS is struggling with high rates of flu.”
“Until now, China has kept deaths very low, but has not used the time to increase vaccination ratesespecially among the elderly,” said the professor.
“This has consequences for China, with high death rates and possible political instabilitybut also for the world, with the risk of new variants“.
“Unfortunately, we still have a lot to do to increase vaccination rates globallybut also to revitalize efforts to prepare for a pandemic,” he stressed to the aforementioned outlet.
CA/ED
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