About a month after China abandoned its strict zero Covid policy, it has reported nearly 60,000 coronavirus-related deaths. A total of 59,938 deaths were recorded between December 8, 2022 and January 12, 2023, National Health Commission senior official Jiao Yahui said at a press conference on Saturday.
Statistics only take into account deaths in medical facilities, the actual death toll is likely to be higher. It’s the first major overview released by the government since the corona relaxation in China in December.
Millions of people have not received the Covid-19 vaccine
Among the nearly 60,000 deaths reported, 5,503 can be directly attributed to shortness of breath caused by the coronavirus, according to Jiao. In the rest, deaths were due to underlying diseases along with Covid-19.
According to Chinese health officials, the average age of those who died was 80.3, and 90 percent of the deaths were over 65. Most of them suffered from underlying diseases. Millions of people over the age of 60 in China are not vaccinated against the corona virus.
In the past few weeks, the number of corona infections in China has exploded. In mid-December, the government in Beijing abandoned its long-standing strict zero-COVID policy.
China changes the way it counts the number of deaths from the corona virus
Last month, Chinese authorities changed the way they count corona deaths. Only corona-infected persons who die directly from respiratory failure are still counted as corona dead. As a result, many deaths are no longer included in the corona statistics.
The World Health Organization (WHO) criticized the categorization change in China last week. In addition, WHO has repeatedly called for faster and more comprehensive transmission of corona data from China.
The rapid increase in the number of cases in China has caused concern all over the world. Many EU countries, including Germany, now require travelers from the People’s Republic to have a negative corona test. In Germany, passengers from China are also being randomly tested for possible new variants of the corona virus after landing. (AFP)
Source :Blick
I’m Tim David and I work as an author for 24 Instant News, covering the Market section. With a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism, my mission is to provide accurate, timely and insightful news coverage that helps our readers stay informed about the latest trends in the market. My writing style is focused on making complex economic topics easy to understand for everyone.
