The Chinese National Health Commission (NHC) yesterday ceased publishing daily COVID-19 data amid doubts about the reliability of numbers, as infections explode in the wake of an abrupt easing of tough restrictions.
“Relevant COVID information will be published by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention for reference and research,” the commission said in a statement.
It did not specify the reasons for the change or how frequently the center would update COVID-19 information.
Photo: AFP
The NHC’s halt to reporting daily infection and death totals comes as concerns grow around the lack of vital information since Beijing made sweeping changes to a “zero COVID” policy that had put hundreds of millions of its citizens under relentless lockdowns and battered the world’s second-largest economy.
Despite a record surge of infections, the NHC had reported no COVID-19 deaths nationwide for four consecutive days before halting the data release. China narrowed its definition for reporting COVID-19 deaths, counting only those from pneumonia or respiratory failure caused by the disease.
British-based health data firm Airfinity last week said that China was experiencing more than 1 million infections and 5,000 deaths per day.
The NHC this month stopped reporting asymptomatic infections, making it harder to track cases.
Official figures from China had become an unreliable guide as less testing was being done across the country, while China has been routinely accused of downplaying infections and deaths.
The US has also reported COVID-19 cases less frequently, changing from daily to weekly updates, citing needs to reduce the reporting burden on local areas.
The WHO has received no data from China on new COVID-19 hospitalizations since Beijing eased its restrictions. The organization said the data gap might be due to the authorities struggling to tally cases in the world’s most populous country.
“China is entering the most dangerous weeks of the pandemic,” a research note from Capital Economics said. “The authorities are making almost no efforts now to slow the spread of infections and, with the migration ahead of Lunar New Year getting started, any parts of the country not currently in a major COVID wave will be soon.”
After years of enforcing strict measures, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) abandonment of his signature “zero COVID” policy now puts a spotlight on the country’s exit plan as Hong Kong plans to reopen China’s border.
China’s abrupt easing of restrictions, including the dismantling of widespread mass testing, had confused its citizens and stoked frustrations as cases soared while official numbers remained incomplete.
“You didn’t count me when I was positive for COVID and you didn’t know when I turned negative. The statistics and reality are too far apart,” a social media user wrote after the NHC halted its daily case reporting, adding that there has been no need to publish them for quite a while.
The cities of Qingdao and Dongguan have each estimated tens of thousands of daily COVID-19 infections in the past few days, much higher than the national daily toll without asymptomatic cases.
Several recent models and reports have forecast as many as 2 million COVID-19 deaths as the virus spreads to vulnerable people in rural sections of the country.
The country’s healthcare system has been under enormous strain, with staff being asked to work while sick, and even retired medical workers in rural communities being rehired to help grassroots efforts, state media reported.
Bolstering the urgency is the approach of the Lunar New Year holidays in January, when enormous numbers of people return home.
Daily requests to the emergency center in the eastern city of Hangzhou have more than tripled on average from last year’s level, state television reported yesterday, citing a Hangzhou health official.
Suzhou, also in the east, on Saturday said its emergency line received a record 7,233 calls on Thursday.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has fired his national police chief, who gained attention for leading the separate arrests of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte on orders of the International Criminal Court and televangelist Apollo Carreon Quiboloy, who is on the FBI’s most-wanted list for alleged child sex trafficking. Philippine Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin did not cite a reason for the removal of General Nicolas Torre as head of the 232,000-member national police force, a position he was appointed to by Marcos in May and which he would have held until 2027. He was replaced by another senior police general, Jose
STILL AFLOAT: Satellite images show that a Chinese ship damaged in a collision earlier this month was under repair on Hainan, but Beijing has not commented on the incident Australia, Canada and the Philippines on Wednesday deployed three warships and aircraft for drills against simulated aerial threats off a disputed South China Sea shoal where Chinese forces have used risky maneuvers to try to drive away Manila’s aircraft and ships. The Philippine military said the naval drills east of Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島) were concluded safely, and it did not mention any encounter with China’s coast guard, navy or suspected militia ships, which have been closely guarding the uninhabited fishing atoll off northwestern Philippines for years. Chinese officials did not immediately issue any comment on the naval drills, but they
POWER CONFLICT: The US president threatened to deploy National Guards in Baltimore. US media reports said he is also planning to station troops in Chicago US President Donald Trump on Sunday threatened to deploy National Guard troops to yet another Democratic stronghold, the Maryland city of Baltimore, as he seeks to expand his crackdown on crime and immigration. The Republican’s latest online rant about an “out of control, crime-ridden” city comes as Democratic state leaders — including Maryland Governor Wes Moore — line up to berate Trump on a high-profile political stage. Trump this month deployed the National Guard to the streets of Washington, in a widely criticized show of force the president said amounts to a federal takeover of US capital policing. The Guard began carrying
Ukrainian drone attacks overnight on several Russian power and energy facilities forced capacity reduction at the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant and set a fuel export terminal in Ust-Luga on fire, Russian officials said yesterday. A drone attack on the Kursk nuclear plant, not far from the border with Ukraine, damaged an auxiliary transformer and led to 50 percent reduction in the operating capacity at unit three of the plant, the plant’s press service said. There were no injuries and a fire sparked by the attack was promptly extinguished, the plant said. Radiation levels at the site and in the surrounding
RSS