China’s National Health Commission, which functions as a ministry, announced on Sunday that it will no longer publish daily figures for Covid cases and deaths, as it had done since early 2020.
She didn’t give any explanation. But these statistics no longer reflected the unprecedented wave of contamination that has hit China since the abandonment on December 7 of the strict sanitary measures of the “zero Covid” policy.
Previously, almost mandatory PCR tests made it possible to reliably follow the epidemic trend. But now infected people perform self-tests at home and rarely report the results to the authorities, which makes it impossible to have reliable figures.
Data published “for research purposes”
“From today, we will no longer publish daily information about the epidemic,” the national health commission said.
“The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will publish information related to the epidemic, for reference and research purposes,” it adds, without specifying the type or frequency of data the CDC will publish.
The Chinese, who saw a complete discrepancy between the contamination of much of their relatives and official statistics, greeted the announcement with derision.
“Eventually they wake up and realize they can’t fool people anymore” with discrete numbers, writes a Weibo user. “It was the biggest and best fake statistics office in the country,” said another. “Are there crematorium employees here? Are you overworked? Can you talk about it?” a third calls.
overwhelmed crematoria
Many crematoriums interviewed by AFP recently reported an unusually high influx of bodies. A situation largely ignored by the Chinese media.
However, they evoke, to a certain extent, hospitals in tension due to the arrival of patients and the shortage of fever reducers.
Another reason for controversy that discredited the official statistics: under a new methodology, now only people who died directly from respiratory failure linked to covid are counted as deaths from covid.
China has only announced six covid deaths since restrictions were lifted. However, many older people do not have a full vaccination schedule and are on the front line against the virus.
Half a million people are infected daily in Qingdao (east), a city of 10 million inhabitants, estimated this week a municipal official quoted by the official press.
Source: BFM TV
