China has overcrowded crematoria, hospitals and hides Covid numbers three years after pandemic began Estadão

BEIJING Three years after the first death of Covid19 be confirmed in it Chinain the province hubeiThe country is facing a new and powerful wave of the disease after years of trying to enforce a zerotolerance policy for the virus. Overcrowding in hospitals and crematoria has become the barometer of the pandemic for health watchers after the government suspended official release of data on the disease in a decision contested by the US World Health Organization (WHO).

Reports of overcrowding in hospitals and crematoria across the country have increased since last December. Around Christmas, funeral workers from different regions of the country announced that they were working at full capacity to treat the bodies arriving from hospitals. Earlier this year, photos taken at a Shanghai hospital showed several patients, including the elderly, awaiting treatment on stretchers and wheelchairs in the corridor.

In the hall of Changhai Hospital in Shanghai, patients are cared for in makeshift beds. Photo: Chinatopix via AP 01/03/2023

Faced with the growing number of cases, Chinese health authorities decided to halt the spread of data about the pandemic in the country, drawing criticism from international health monitors. This Wednesday, the 11th, the WHO criticized China for hiding the data, while Chinese authorities replied that it was not “necessary” to focus on the exact number of deaths from the virus at this time.

“At the moment, I don’t think it is necessary to investigate the (death) cause of each individual case,” epidemiologist Liang Wannian, head of the antiCovid expert group commissioned by the National Health Commission, dismissed as the ministry. “The main task during the pandemic should be treatment.”

China will be able to determine the death toll by studying excess mortality “a posteriori,” Wang Guiqiang, head of the infectious diseases department at Beijing University Hospital, suggested at a news conference.

According to official figures, just 37 Covid19related deaths have been recorded since last month in China, a country of 1.4 billion people.

In December, Beijing revised its method for accounting for coronavirus deaths. Today, only people who die directly from virusrelated respiratory arrest are included in the statistics. This change in methodology resulted in a large number of deaths potentially linked to Covid19 going unrecorded.

Last week, the WHO criticized the new definition of the number of deaths from Covid in China, classifying it as “very limited”.

“We continue to urge China to receive faster, more regular and more reliable data on hospitalizations and deaths, as well as more complete realtime sequencing of the virus,” said the WHO directorgeneral Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Beijing has countered the criticism, urging the WHO to take an “impartial” stance on Covid19./ AFP