China reports huge rise in COVID-related deaths

BEIJING - China said on Saturday nearly 60,000 people with COVID-19 had died in hospital since it abandoned its zero-COVID policy last month, a huge increase from previously reported figures that follows global criticism of the country’s coronavirus data.

In early December, Beijing abruptly dismantled its strict three-year anti-virus regime of frequent testing, travel curbs and mass lockdowns after widespread protests in late November, and cases have surged since then across the nation of 1.4 billion.

A health official said on Saturday that COVID fever and emergency hospitalisations had peaked and the number of hospitalised patients was continuing to decline.

Between December 8 and January 12, the number of COVID-related deaths in Chinese hospitals totalled 59,938, Jiao Yahui, head of the Bureau of Medical Administration under the National Health Commission (NHC), told a media briefing.

Of those fatalities, 5503 were caused by respiratory failure due to COVID and the remainder resulted from a combination of COVID and other diseases, she said.

The World Health Organization, which earlier this week said China was heavily under-reporting deaths from the virus and called for more information, on Saturday welcomed Beijing’s announcement, while renewing its plea for more detailed data.

The UN agency said its Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus had spoken with Ma Xiaowei, director of China’s National Health Commission, about the latest outbreak, which the WHO said was similar to what had been seen in other countries.