The head of the Medical Administration Office of the National Health Commission, Jiao Yahui, told reporters that between December 8, 2022 and January 12, 2023, China recorded 59,938 deaths related to corona.
This comes after China’s abolition of its strict restrictions related to the pandemic, a month ago, led to the spread of the virus among 1.4 billion people who have little immunity, due to the closure imposed on them after the first appearance of Corona, in Wuhan, three years ago.
Funeral homes have reported high demand for their services, hospitals have been overwhelmed with patients, and global health experts predict at least one million deaths in China this year.
However, China has officially announced only a few deaths related to Corona, since adjusting its policy to deal with the virus, and has played down concerns about the disease, which it had previously struggled to eradicate through general closures, even as the rest of the world reopened its borders.
However, the authorities are determined to cancel the last remaining policies aimed at preventing the spread of the Corona virus, according to Reuters.
While China criticized the decisions taken by some countries, which required arrivals from Beijing to present negative results for the Corona examination, saying that these decisions are “illogical and lack scientific basis.”
The organization had called on scientists to provide detailed data on viral sequences, and to share data related to hospitalizations, deaths and vaccinations associated with the virus.
The spokeswoman had said earlier that the organization was awaiting a “detailed discussion” about the spread of virus variants in China and globally.
And last month, the World Health Organization said that it had not received data from China regarding new hospitalizations due to infection with the virus, since Beijing amended its policy in dealing with the virus, which prompted some health experts to ask whether Beijing was hiding the real numbers of people infected with the virus.
