As Cases Explode, China’s Low Covid Death Toll Convinces No One

“These are an example of ‘believing in one’s own lies,’” Mei Xinyu, an economist at a research institute affiliated with the Commerce Ministry, wrote on his social media page, commenting on a daily report of Covid figures released by the government. He later posted an announcement that the father-in-law of a prominent economist had died from pneumonia induced by Covid. The man’s family, he wrote, waited hours for an ambulance to arrive and take him to the hospital.

“In the end, he could only be left on the floor of the hospital mortuary, awaiting cremation,” Mr. Mei wrote. He said that the family was having trouble getting a cremation slot and hiring a hearse. “The family members are heartbroken.”

As is the case elsewhere, deaths in China tend to rise in winter, because of an increase in flu and other respiratory infections, even in normal times. But people working in funeral services say they have noticed a larger increase than usual. At the Yong’an funeral services business in Shijiazhuang, a city about 200 miles southwest of Beijing, an employee said that he used to handle 10 deaths per month but is now getting calls for about five each day.

Some Chinese media reports have acknowledged a handful of Covid-related deaths. Wang Ruoji, a 37-year-old retired soccer star, died after a Covid infection worsened an underlying condition. Caixin, a respected news outlet, wrote that Zhou Zhichun, a former senior editor at a Communist Party newspaper, died at 77 after getting Covid, with his doctors classifying the cause as sudden cardiac death.

But on social media, users have shared official obituaries of several other prominent people who have died in recent days, including an opera singer and an artist who helped design sports mascots. Many speculated that the true cause of these deaths was being concealed with descriptions such as “severe cold infections.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/23/world/asia/china-covid-death-toll.html