China has reported around 60,000 deaths among people affected by COVID since the beginning of December after courts failed to disclose data.
The death toll from Dec. 8 to Thursday stands at 5,503 deaths from respiratory failure from COVID-19 and 54,435 deaths from other situations combined with COVID-19, the National Health Commission reported on Saturday, adding that the “emergency peak” of its new surge appears to have passed.
He said the reported deaths from COVID-19 occurred in hospitals, leaving open the option that more people could have possibly died at home.
The report would more than double the official number of deaths directly attributed to COVID-19 in China, to 10,775 since the virus was first detected in the central city of Wuhan in late 2019.
China stopped reporting COVID-19 deaths and infections after lifting anti-virus controls in December, despite a surge in infections that began in October and filled hospitals with patients with fevers and wheezing.
The World Health Organization and other governments appealed to China for information after reports by city and provincial governments suggested hundreds of millions of people in China might have contracted the virus.
The peak of the new wave of infections appears to have passed, thanks to a decline in the number of patients visiting fever clinics, said Jiao Yahui, head of the National Health Commission.
The number of other people visiting clinics peaked at 2. 9 million on Dec. 23 and fell 83 percent to 477,000 on Thursday, Jiao said.
While foreign fitness experts predicted at least one million COVID-related deaths this year, China had in the past reported just over 5,000 deaths since the start of the pandemic, one of the lowest death rates in the world.
The average age of those who have died since Dec. 8 is 80. 3, and 90% are 65 or older, according to the Health Commission.
He says more than 90% of those who died had cancer, central or lung disease, or kidney problems.
The United States, South Korea and other governments have imposed COVID-19 testing and other controls on people arriving from China since the spike in cases began last month.
On Wednesday, Beijing retaliated by postponing new visas for travelers from South Korea and Japan.
China, the world’s most populous country, kept its infection and death rates lower than the United States and many other countries at the height of the pandemic thanks to a “zero-Covid” strategy. “, which was intended to isolate the case.
The policy locked down some cities, kept millions of people in their homes and sparked angry protests.