Beijing. According to Vice Premier Liu He, the corona situation in China is stable. “China has passed the peak of infections,” Liu said at the World Economic Forum in Davos. It was only a short period of time for the “return to normality”.
However, existing speculation about embellished corona death rates in China is given new impetus according to reports from doctors. Doctors reported to the Reuters news agency that they had been asked not to write respiratory failure after Covid disease on the death certificate as the cause of death. If the deceased had an underlying medical condition, that should be listed as the leading cause of death, according to a directive from a private hospital’s emergency department seen by Reuters.
Six doctors in public hospitals across China confirmed they had either received similar verbal instructions preventing them from attributing deaths to Covid – or were aware their hospitals had such guidelines. “Since it reopened in December, we have stopped classifying Covid deaths,” said a doctor at a major public hospital in Shanghai. “It’s pointless to do that because almost everyone is positive.”
Several medics said they had been told such orders came from “the government,” though no one knew from which department. Three other doctors stated that they were not aware of such guidelines.
Seven relatives of the recently deceased told Reuters there was no mention of Covid on the death certificate, even though the relatives either tested positive or showed Covid-like symptoms. Social media is full of similar reports.
China’s Center for Disease Control and the National Health Commission could not immediately be reached for comment.
Virus is spreading rapidly
After the government gave up its strict zero-Covid policy at the beginning of December, the virus is spreading rapidly in the People’s Republic. In recent weeks, however, the authorities have reported a maximum of five deaths per day – a stark contrast to the images of long queues in front of funeral homes and numerous body bags coming from overcrowded hospitals. Last week, the National Health Commission revised its figures significantly upwards. According to this, there were almost 60,000 deaths between December 8th and January 12th. However, international experts estimate that there could be more than a million corona deaths this year.
The World Health Organization (WHO) recently recommended that the People’s Republic monitor excess mortality in order to get a more comprehensive picture of the effects of the Covid spread.(reuters)
