Jesus Centeno
Beijing, December 20 (EFE).- China today continued to report only five deaths from covid despite the rapid spread of the virus after the lifting of restrictions, a situation which has raised questions as to whether the government is disclosing the true number of victims.
The National Health Commission announced two deaths from the disease on Monday, while today it recorded five more, the first since 3, just before the government relaxed its strict “zero covid” policy and, among other measures, allowed those infected to isolate themselves in their homes instead of being held in isolation centers, as has been the case for three years.
The change of strategy took place after the unprecedented protests that erupted in several Chinese cities due to the exhaustion generated by the restrictions imposed to contain the outbreaks.
However, the scrapping of the policy has left the country practically paralysed, with empty streets and a rise in infections that is not reflected in official statistics – China reported only 2,722 new cases on Tuesday – once the PCR tests that residents are abandoned he had to undergo several times a week in order to access public establishments.
However, many in the Asian country suspect that official statistics are not recording the real number of deaths from covid that have occurred in recent weeks.
Officially, China has announced 5,242 deaths from covid since the start of the pandemic, including deaths recorded yesterday and today, out of a population of more than 1.4 billion people.
Videos shared on social media show long queues at crematoria in cities like Beijing, while some users of Weibo, the equivalent of Twitter, say it is “impossible” that the number of victims offered is real.
“I know of many more people who have died in recent days than the figures we see in the statistics,” says one user, while another makes calculations and assures that in Beijing, where more than 20 million people live, at least 15,000 will die this year. winter.
“Statistics are incomplete. Why?” asks another.
In this sense, the private newspaper Caixin recently assured that the authorities have changed the way virus deaths are classified “to ensure that the death is due to covid and not to underlying diseases”.
For its part, the Government defends that it has saved millions of lives thanks to ‘zero covid’ and, according to state television CGTN, although the global death rate in the three years of the pandemic is 1.03%, “in China is lower, 0.31%”, thanks to his tough strategy to protect himself from the virus despite the effects it has had on the economy and social exhaustion.
HOMECOMING
The reality is that the explosion of cases has left thousands of people with symptoms “self-confined” at home, while some cities have had to transform the ubiquitous PCR test booths into treatment stations for fever patients or sale of medicines and supplies. sanitary.
“The government decided to open completely without collecting enough medicines, and now people don’t even dare to go out to buy them. They need to make sure that everyone has access to it,” says another user on Weibo.
On the sidelines, the authorities are preparing to face the next wave of infections, expected according to Chinese experts for the Lunar New Year holidays, the largest annual migration in the world and which in 2023 will fall between 21 and 27 January.
Thus, the Executive has already asked local governments to give priority to health services in rural areas “to protect the population”, underlining “their relative scarcity of health resources”, the high mobility during holidays and travel of migrant workers returning to their places of origin.
The Chinese government assured earlier this month that there are “conditions” for the country to adjust its measures in the face of a “new situation” in which the virus causes fewer deaths, although it has also announced a plan to speed up the vaccination of the elderly. , one of the most vulnerable groups but at the same time most reluctant to get vaccinated.
Even the official press has started for a few weeks to minimize the risk of the omicron variant through numerous articles and interviews with experts, a round of controversy that has accompanied the easing of some of the strictest measures of the ‘zero covid’ policy. EFE extension
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