For the first time since the lifting of restrictions linked to the zero Covid policy in China, the country’s health authorities released, on Saturday January 14, a report on the number of deaths linked to the disease on their territory. Between December 8, 2022 and January 12, 2023, 59,938 people died from the epidemic, either directly from respiratory failure associated with Covid-19 (for 5,503 of them), or from Covid-19 contracted in parallel with other pathologies (54,435).
This report does not take into account deaths recorded outside medical facilities.
The information was released by Jiao Yahui on behalf of the National Health Commission, and does not take into account deaths recorded outside medical facilities. Xi Jinping had decided to end the zero Covid policy in the country at the beginning of December, against a backdrop of social protest after major health restrictions in several regions of the country.
Overwhelmed hospitals and overwhelmed crematoriums
The number of patients has grown rapidly. Hospitals find themselves overwhelmed with elderly patients and crematoriums appear overwhelmed by the influx of bodies.
Beijing reviewed its methodology for the census of Covid deaths in December. Only people who died directly from respiratory failure linked to the coronavirus are now included in the statistics. This controversial change in methodology means that a large number of deaths are no longer listed as being due to the coronavirus.
The World Health Organization (WHO) last week criticized this new Chinese definition of a Covid-19 death, deeming it “too narrow”. Beijing had lambasted these critics and called on the WHO to adopt a position “impartial” on Covid-19.
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