China: Beijing announces an 80% drop in deaths linked to Covid-19

Masked travelers at Beijing Railway Station, January 14, 2023 (illustrative image).

AP - Mark Schiefelbein

Text by: RFI Follow

1 min

Has China passed the peak of the Covid-19 wave which is sweeping the country and which has already seen 80% of the 1,400 million Chinese infected, as a leading epidemiologist pointed out last weekend?

While Western media publish articles on the lack of coffins in certain rural areas and overwhelmed morgues and crematoriums in Shanghai, Beijing announces an 80% drop in daily deaths linked to the virus. 

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The Chinese authorities push a "phew" of relief, the official press welcomes it, showing happy travelers enjoying their Lunar New Year holidays.

Contrary to expectations, there has been no explosion in the number of infections during these first family reunions for three years, assures the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Less than 900 deaths

Hospitals recorded, on Monday, January 23, less than 900 deaths attributable to the coronavirus, a drop of almost 80% compared to January 4.

The number of serious cases has decreased by 72%.

Officially, the peak of the Covid-19 wave has now passed.

Since December 22, 2022, which had seen seven million new infections, the number of cases is now falling. 

Figures to be taken with tweezers

But these figures are to be taken with a grain of salt: according to the WHO, Beijing defines deaths linked to the coronavirus too narrowly.

Only people who died of respiratory failure due to Covid-19 have their death attributed to this virus.

A way of systematically underestimating the scale of the epidemic outbreak.

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: The Chinese population is declining for the first time in sixty years

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  • China

  • Coronavirus

  • Health and medicine

  • Xi Jinping

  • WHO