China removes Covid mortality data after citizens discovered large spike in deaths in one region after lockdown rules were lifted
- Cremations in Zhejiang province increased by 73% in the first quarter of the year
Chinese authorities removed the covid mortality data after showing deaths had skyrocketed in a wealthy area after the government suddenly relaxed strict covid lockdown rules, according to reports.
According to reports, the number of reported cremations in the coastal province of Zhejiang increased by 73 percent in the first quarter of 2023 from a year earlier.
The recorded number, 171,000, was far higher than the 99,000 and 91,000 deaths reported in the same period in 2022 and 2021, the FT reports.
Bodies piled up in crematoria after Xi Jinping’s government revealed it would review its covid restrictions late last year, but no covid-19 deaths were recorded.
The revelation comes after China was accused of “suppressing information” instead of alerting the world about covid and underestimating the true number of deaths.
According to reports, the number of reported cremations in the coastal province of Zhejiang increased by 73 percent in the first quarter of 2023 from a year earlier.
Low immunity, due to low vaccination rates and a lack of previous infections following strict lockdowns, is believed to have fueled a spike in coronavirus cases in early 2023. The picture is a file image showing a worker doctor in Zhejiang province last year.
Hospitals filled with covid patients after China’s long lockdown was eased, and now authorities have failed to release detailed and accurate figures.
China did not release data on the number of cremation services performed in the fourth quarter of 2022, preventing public access to figures that have been released quarterly since 2007.
The Ministry of Civil Affairs removed the figure from its quarterly publication of national civil affairs data, while provinces also appeared to be withholding information, the South China Morning Post reported last month.
Access to data sets like this help researchers assess how the virus spread through the population.
Willy Lam, a senior fellow at think tank The Jamestown Foundation, said the Zhejiang data was only a small part of the bigger picture, with China accused of covering up flaws in its handling of the pandemic.
“Publishing all these death data would be very useful for researchers, but it would undermine Xi Jinping’s position and show how his administration mishandled the sudden lifting of zero-covid controls,” he told the FT.
Some experts now say that Covid may have arisen inside the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Here security personnel are shown keeping watch during a WHO visit in 2021
Earlier this month, Dr Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of the medical journal The Lancet, told the UK government’s Covid Inquiry that Beijing failed to inform international health bodies about the rapidly increasing threat of the virus. .
He also called for laboratories working with highly dangerous microbes to be subjected to “tougher international regulation.”
Dr Horton told the inquiry: “The initial response from local government officials in Wuhan was to suppress information, not report information.”
‘The initial signal came through pro-MED. It did not reach the World Health Organization (WHO) through official Chinese government channels.’
In December, it was feared that mass infections among the Chinese population would lead to a new wave of the virus going global.
Up to 250 million people contracted covid in the first 20 days of December in China, officials estimated at the time.
The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said 18 percent of the population was infected, after Beijing relaxed its strict lockdown measures.
Low immunity, due to low vaccination rates and a lack of previous infections, is believed to have fueled the wave.
The origins of Covid-19 have also been linked to China by the authors of two United Nations reports investigating where it came from.
Epidemiologists Colin Butler and Delia Randolph said in January that they believe a laboratory leak was the most likely cause of Covid-19.
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