China Covid Surge: China Reports 60,000 Covid-Related Deaths Amid International Calls For Data-Sharing

Chinese hospitals in recent weeks have been overwhelmed as China faces an unprecedented Covid-19 surge. The recent update on death toll also comes amid grim projections which say that 1.3-2.1 million people could die in China in the current surge.

Outlook Web Desk

Updated on: 14 January 2023 11:26 am

A patient rests in a wheelchair at the emergency department of the Langfang No. 4 Peoples Hospital in Bazhou city in northern Chinas Hebei province.

China on Saturday reported around 60,000 Covid-related deaths since December amid an ongoing unprecedented Covid-19 surge.

In recent weeks, Chinese healthcare system has been overwhelmed from the surge in infections and patients are being treated in corridors and roads outside hospitals as they ran out of beds. Despite visuals of such incidents, the Chinese authorities have been accused of underplaying the outbreak and witholding data from the international community.

On Saturday, China reported 5,503 deaths due to respiratory failure caused by Covid-19 and 54,435 deaths from other ailments combined with Covid-19 since early December.

Dec 28 video, this hospital in Shanghai treated some patients outside the overflowing emergency department. pic.twitter.com/UHSVjE3m3Y
— Manya Koetse (@manyapan) January 2, 2023

The Chinese National Health Commission said those deaths occurred in hospitals, which left open the possibility more people also might have died at home.

The report would more than double China's official Covid-19 death toll to 10,775. The official toll stood at 5,272 on January 8.

The Chinese government stopped reporting data on Covid-19 infections and deaths in early December after abruptly lifting anti-virus controls.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and other governments appealed to Beijing for more information amid a surge in infections.

On January 2, 2023, the Army General Hospital of the Eastern Theater Command of Shanghai.
(source: Chinese social media)#china #covid pic.twitter.com/qQQiKBQn2d
— Brijesh Singh (@Brijeshbsingh) January 3, 2023

The ongoing surge in China has been credited to BF.7 sub-variant of Omicron variant of coronavirus, which is highly transmissible and can evade vaccine-derived protetion.

The recent update on death toll also comes amid grim projections which say that 1.3-2.1 million people could die in China in the current surge. PTI earlier reported projections by The Economist and The Lancet.

⚠️THERMONUCLEAR BAD—Hospitals completely overwhelmed in China ever since restrictions dropped. Epidemiologist estimate >60% of 🇨🇳 & 10% of Earth’s population likely infected over next 90 days. Deaths likely in the millions—plural. This is just the start—🧵pic.twitter.com/VAEvF0ALg9
— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) December 19, 2022

The Economist reported that around 1.5 million Chinese could die based on its model that calculated the trajectory of China's outbreak under different scenarios based on estimates of the rates at which people become infected, get sick, recover or die – referred to as the SEIR model, according to PTI.

The PTI reported a Lancet report quoting a projection saying that somewhere between 1.3 and 2.1 million people could die from Covid-19 after China reopens.

(With AP inputs)