This Saturday, January 14, 2023, the Chinese health authorities announced a terrifying report: between December 8, 2022 and January 12, 2023, nearly 60,000 people in China died from Covid-19. In detail: around 5,500 people died from respiratory failure caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus and nearly 54,400 people developed pathologies in parallel with Covid-19.
How to explain these colossal figures? On December 7, 2022, the Chinese National Health Commission announced the end of its “zero Covid policy”: most restrictions related to the circulation of the virus (quarantine centers, large-scale tests, confinement of neighborhoods or even cities whole…) have been lifted. This abrupt change in attitude resulted in an influx of patients into Chinese hospitals.
Covid: nearly 60,000 deaths in the space of a month in China
But there is worse: these figures are probably underestimated. Because in December 2022, China reviewed its methodology for the census of the dead of Covid-19: from now on, only people who died directly from respiratory failure linked to the coronavirus are counted in the statistics.
A judged methodtoo narrow“by the World Health Organization (WHO). World health authorities have also requested more complete data from China on the evolution of the epidemic “by province over time”.We continue to call on China for faster, regular and reliable data on hospitalizations and deaths, as well as more complete and real-time sequencing of the virus.“said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of WHO.
However, not sure that the WHO will obtain more elements: this Wednesday, January 11, 2023, the Chinese health authorities estimated that it was “not necessary“In the immediate future to dwell on the precise number of deaths linked to Covid.
Source :WHO
