China has registered around 60,000 deaths from Covid-19 in just over a month, local authorities announced Saturday. It is the highest number of deaths published by the Beijing government since the end of the “Covid zero” policy, lifted in December.
“Between December 8, 2022 and January 12, 2023, a total of 59,938 Covid-19-related deaths were recorded,” said Jiao Yahui, head of the medical administration office of the National Health Commission, quoted by the AFP news agency.
The number now released includes 5,503 deaths caused by respiratory failure directly due to the virus and 54,435 deaths from infection-related illnesses.
According to the health authorities, 90% of fatalities were over 65 years of age.
China abolished several COVID-19 prevention measures in early December, including isolating all positive cases in designated facilities, marking the end of the ‘zero cases’ strategy that has become a source of discontent. popular.
At the time, the Council of State (executive) announced that anyone who tests positive for the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus could start self-isolating at home, rather than being sent to designated facilities, often in degrading conditions, and that schools that had not yet had outbreaks returned to face-to-face teaching.
The policy change came after protests in various cities across the country against the Covid-19 “zero cases” policy, which generated cases of alleged abuse of authority and imposed, for almost three years, a quarantine on everyone who arrived. from abroad.
According to data released today, cited by the Global Times newspaper, the average age of deaths registered in medical centers was 80.3 years, with 90.1% being over 65 years of age and more than 90% suffering from underlying diseases.
The health commission also clarified that it carries out PCR tests to classify whether the deaths were caused by Covid-19 and that the main direct causes were respiratory failure (5,503) or previous illnesses that worsened after the development of the pandemic infection (54,435).
Source: TSF
