China Reports First Death From COVID In More Than A Year

People line up during a snowfall at a mobile nucleic acid testing site following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Beijing, China, 18 March 2022. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang

SHANGHAI/BEJING, March 19 – Mainland China reported its first death from COVID-19 in more than a year on Saturday, according to a report on the National Health Commission website, which said two people had died in the northeastern Jilin area.

China has only reported two deaths from COVID in all of 2021, the latest on January 25.

The country is pursuing a “dynamic cleanup” approach that aims to stop transmission as soon as possible using strict measures such as short-term and targeted shutdowns and rapid testing schemes when cases are discovered. More

Jilin, which borders North Korea and Russia, accounts for more than two-thirds of domestic infections in the latest wave. More

One of the dead was not vaccinated, said Jiao Yahui, a senior National Health Commission official. Comorbidities were the immediate cause of death for both victims, Jiao told reporters in Beijing, while the symptoms of COVID-19 were mild.

According to the Shanghai government publication The Paper, one victim was 87 years old and the other was 65.

More than 95% of the nearly 30,000 people hospitalized with COVID-19 in China have mild or no symptoms, Jiao said.

The latest deaths bring the total death toll in China to 4,638. China reported 2,228 new confirmed coronavirus infections on Friday, up from 2,416 the day before.

Of the new cases, 2157 were transmitted locally, up from 2388 the day before, with 78% reported in Jilin while others were found in southeastern Fujian, southern Guangdong and elsewhere.

New asymptomatic cases, which China considers separate from confirmed cases, stood at 1,823, up from 1,904 a day earlier. As of Friday, mainland China had 128,462 confirmed cases.

The deaths have quickly become one of the hottest topics on Chinese social media. “Two more COVID deaths in Jilin” was prominent on Chinese Twitter-like platform Weibo, with many users hoping for more information about the two victims.

“For what reason did this happen?” — said one of the users of the social network. “Details should be made public in a timely manner.”

Others have spoken out in support of China’s dynamic cleansing policy, criticizing talk of openness.

“Herd immunity, even a discovery that allows people to exercise, will not work,” said another person on Weibo.

Reporting by Zhang Yan and Engen Tam in Shanghai, Roxanne Liu in Beijing; Edited by Raju Gopalakrishnan, Kenneth Maxwell, William Mallard and Edmund Clamann.

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