China’s official data on COVID-19 deaths have always been transparent, state media late on Thursday quoted a senior health official as saying, despite the official figures being tiny compared with other countries and reports that the country’s hospitals are overwhelmed with cases of the disease.
Beijing’s release of all virus information was done “in the spirit of openness,” the official told a Chinese State Council news briefing, Xinhua news agency reported.
A national disease control body yesterday said there were about 5,500 new local cases and one death, but with the end of mass testing and the narrowing of criteria for what counts as a COVID-19 fatality, those numbers are no longer believed to reflect reality.
Photo: Reuters
Some experts estimate there might be as many as 9,000 daily deaths.
“China has always been publishing information on COVID-19 deaths and severe cases in the spirit of openness and transparency,” said Jiao Yahui (焦雅輝), director of the Chinese National Health Commission’s Bureau of Medical Administration.
Jiao said that China counts COVID-19 deaths as cases only if they died of respiratory failure induced by the virus after testing positive with a nucleic acid test, rather than other countries that include all deaths within 28 days of positive tests.
“China has always been committed to the scientific criteria for judging COVID-19 deaths, from beginning to end, which are in line with the international criteria,” Jiao said.
The commission last week said it would no longer release an official daily COVID-19 death toll.
Health risk analysis firm Airfinity said it currently estimates 9,000 daily deaths and 1.8 million infections per day in China, while it also expects 1.7 million fatalities across the country by the end of April.
The UK-based research company said its model was based on data from Chinese provinces, before changes to reporting infections were implemented, combined with case growth rates from other countries that tried to suppress the transmission of the virus before lifting restrictions.
China said this week it would end mandatory quarantine on arrival, after earlier this month announcing it had abandoned a raft of tough measures to contain the virus.
The world’s most populous country said it would downgrade its management of COVID-19 from Jan. 8, treating it as a Class B infection, rather than a more serious Class A infection.
Liang Wannian (梁萬年), a senior official at the commission who oversaw China’s COVID-19 response until September 2020, called the moves appropriate, scientific and law-based, Xinhua reported.
The state news agency reported Liang as saying the shift does not mean China is letting the virus go, but that is instead directing resources to the most important areas of controlling the epidemic and treating infected people.
Crowds in Bangladesh are flocking to snap photographs with an unlikely social media star — an albino buffalo with flowing blond hair nicknamed “Donald Trump” that is due to be sacrificed within days. Owner Zia Uddin Mridha, 38, said his brother named the 700kg bull over its flowing helmet of hair resembling the signature look of the US president. “My younger brother picked this name because of the buffalo’s extraordinary hair,” he said at his farm in Narayanganj, just outside the capital, Dhaka. Mridha said that a constant stream of curious visitors — social media fans, onlookers and children — have come throughout
The Bolivian government on Friday struck a deal with protesting miners, but was still grappling with blockades and demonstrations by other workers across La Paz. Other groups are still blocking access roads into the city, which is also the seat of the government. Police on Thursday prevented the miners from entering the main square by using tear gas, while the demonstrators hurled stones and explosives with slingshots. Protests against the policies of Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz have convulsed the Andean nation since early this month, and roadblocks were choking routes into La Paz throughout Friday, the national road authority said. Miners demanded that Paz
The Philippines said it has asked the country’s Supreme Court to allow it to arrest former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s chief drug war enforcer to stand trial in an international tribunal. The International Criminal Court (ICC) last week unsealed an arrest warrant against Philippine Senator Ronald dela Rosa, accusing him along with Duterte and other “coperpetrators” of the “crime against humanity of murder.” Dela Rosa briefly sought refuge in the Philippine Senate last week while asking the Philippine Supreme Court to stop an ongoing attempt by government agents to arrest him. “By his own conduct, he has placed himself outside the protection of
The researchers in Ireland looked at their computer screen, marveling at a medieval book tracked down in a Roman library. They flipped through its digitized pages and found their sought-after treasure: the oldest surviving English poem. “We were extremely surprised. We were speechless. We couldn’t believe our eyes when we first saw that,” said Elisabetta Magnanti, a visiting research fellow at Trinity College Dublin’s school of English. The poem was also within the main body of Latin text, she said, calling it “extraordinary.” Composed in Old English by a Northumbrian agricultural worker in the 7th century, Caedmon’s Hymn appears within some copies of
RSS