China on Saturday announced at least 60,000 deaths in hospitals related to the Covid-19 pandemic since health restrictions in the country were lifted a month ago.
• Also read: WHO, dissatisfied with China, welcomes cooperation with the United States
• Also read: The current COVID surge in China is not expected to have a “significant” impact on Europe
“A total of 59,938 (deaths) were registered between December 8, 2022 and January 12, 2023,” health department official Jiao Yahui told reporters.
This report does not include deaths recorded outside of medical facilities.
Among those deaths, 5,503 were directly caused by respiratory failure related to Covid-19, this official said.
After three years of some of the world’s most draconian restrictions, China abruptly lifted most of its health measures against the coronavirus in early December.
The number of patients has grown rapidly. Hospitals are overwhelmed with elderly patients and crematoria seem to be overwhelmed by the influx of corpses.
Beijing reviewed its method for accounting for Covid deaths in December.
Only people who died directly from respiratory failure in connection with the corona virus are included in the statistics.
This controversial change in methodology means that a large number of deaths are no longer listed as attributable to Covid.
The World Health Organization (WHO) criticized this new Chinese definition of a Covid death last week, saying it was “too narrow”.
Beijing castigated this criticism and called on the WHO to take an “impartial” position on the Covid.
On Wednesday, Chinese health authorities had deemed it “not necessary” to immediately address the exact number of Covid-related deaths.