China gives numbers: Almost 60,000 corona deaths since easing

The sudden end of the corona measures in China has consequences: millions infected and thousands dead. According to authorities, almost 60,000 people have died in connection with the virus within a month.

According to official figures, around 60,000 people have died in connection with Covid-19 in China since the beginning of December. This was announced by the National Health Commission.

It is the first time since China’s abrupt departure from the zero-Covid policy last month that China’s state and party leaders have announced a larger death toll. There had previously been international criticism that the Chinese government was not publishing sufficient data on the course of the pandemic.

Most had pre-existing conditions

A total of 59,938 deaths were recorded between December 8, 2022 and January 12, 2023, a senior official of the National Health Commission, Jiao Yahui, said at a news conference. The statistics only consider deaths within medical facilities. It remained open whether other people died in their own home from or with Corona.

According to the information, 5503 people died from respiratory arrest caused by the corona virus. Another 54,435 people died from other diseases related to Covid-19. According to the Chinese health authorities, the average age of the deceased was 80.3 years, and 90 percent of the fatalities were over 65 years old. Most would have suffered from underlying diseases.

“Emergency peak” over according to the Health Commission

The number of patients visiting the so-called fever clinics has decreased, according to the National Health Commission. The number of people going to such clinics peaked at 2.9 million on Dec. 23, Jiao Yahui said. By Thursday it had fallen by 83 percent to around half a million. “These data show that the national emergency peak is over,” Jiao said in a news conference.

Experts assume higher numbers

China’s National Health Commission announced last month that only Covid-19 patients who die of respiratory arrest are counted as Covid dead. Even using this extremely narrow definition, the number of deaths in the world’s most populous country with 1.4 billion inhabitants is likely to be significantly higher. Experts abroad assume that up to one and a half million people could die in connection with Covid-19 in the People’s Republic by spring.

In China, millions of people over the age of 60 are not vaccinated against the corona virus. In the past few weeks, the number of corona infections in China has exploded. Hospitals and crematoria are overwhelmed. The state and party leadership is trying to downplay the consequences of the outbreak.

China downplays consequences

At the beginning of December, the Chinese government abruptly ended its zero-Covid policy, largely lifted restrictions and stopped publishing data on infections and deaths. The World Health Organization and numerous governments called on Beijing to disseminate more information in view of a drastic increase in the number of infections in the country.

Many EU countries, including Germany, now require travelers from the People’s Republic to have a negative corona test. In Germany, travelers from China are also randomly tested for possible new variants of the corona virus after landing.