The first significant death toll made public by the authorities since Beijing removed viral restrictions in early December, China said on Saturday that about 60,000 people had died as a result of COVID in just over a month.
Since abandoning its zero-Covid policy, the government has been charged with underreporting the number of fatalities caused by the coronavirus.
Prior to the statement on Saturday, only a small number of deaths had been formally reported in December, despite indications of overcrowded hospitals and crematoriums.
But a representative of China’s National Health Commission (NHC) reported on Saturday that the country has documented 59,938 deaths linked to COVID between December 8 and January 12.
The total number is probably greater because the figure only includes deaths that occurred in hospitals.
Jiao Yahui, director of the NHC’s Bureau of Medical Administration, revealed the statistics at a press conference. They show 54,435 deaths from underlying conditions combined with Covid and 5,503 deaths from respiratory failure directly attributed to the virus.
Beijing changed its classification system for Covid fatalities last month and announced that it will only include individuals who expressly pass away from the virus’s induced respiratory failure.
The World Health Organization criticized this, saying the criteria was too narrow.
According to WHO chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the organisation is continuing to “ask China for more rapid, regular, reliable data on hospitalisation and deaths, as well as… viral sequencing”.
Beijing, meanwhile, has insisted it has been transparent with the international community about its data, urging the WHO to “uphold a scientific, objective and just position”.
The specific number of fatalities shouldn’t be discussed, health officials emphasized on Wednesday, and the NHC no longer publishes a daily official count of Covid deaths.
The head of a government-appointed expert panel said during a news conference, “I don’t think it is necessary to look into the cause of death for every case at present. The key task during the pandemic should be treatment.”
At the same news conference, a different expert stated that China may estimate the number of Covid deaths by examining the general excess mortality rate.
Independent infection models have portrayed a bleak image of the potential final toll.
Researchers from the University of Hong Kong have calculated that this winter, approximately one million Chinese could pass away.
Additionally, according to Airfinity, a health risk research company, there would be 11,000 fatalities and 1.8 million infections daily by the end of April.
The research organization located in Britain claims that their model is based on data from China’s regional provinces collected before to the implementation of changes to reporting infections, as well as case growth rates from other formerly zero-Covid nations following the removal of limitations.
Seniors at Risk
According to health experts, the average age of individuals who passed away was 80.3 years, with more than 90 percent of fatalities occurring after the age of 65.
They claimed that most had underlying medical issues.
Millions of elderly people in China are under-vaccinated, and President Xi Jinping’s administration has come under fire for not giving immunization campaigns priority among the population’s most vulnerable members.
The high death toll during an outbreak in Hong Kong last year was mostly caused by older people’s vaccine reluctance.
According to the Hong Kong authorities, 67 percent of the more than 10,500 fatalities in that wave were caused by non-vaccination, and more than 95 percent of the deceased were 60 years of age or older.
On Saturday, officials added their support to the idea that the current wave’s crest may have already passed.
Fever clinics saw just under 2.9 million patients on December 23, but by January 12, the number had fallen to 477,000 nationally.
They claimed that although the number of really ill patients in hospitals was still high, the peak looked to have occurred in the first few days of January.
They emphasized early detection and treatment for the most vulnerable as the top goal while keeping an eye on the situation in rural areas.