China reports nearly 60,000 people with COVID-19 died since early December | CBC News - Joe McDonald, Associated Press:
January 14, 2023 -"China on Saturday reported nearly 60,000 deaths in people who had COVID-19 since early December, offering hard numbers for an unprecedented surge that was apparent in overcrowded hospitals and packed crematoriums.... Those numbers may still underestimate the toll, though the government said the 'emergency peak' of its latest surge appears to have passed.
"The toll included 5,503 deaths due to respiratory failure caused by COVID-19 and 54,435 fatalities from other ailments combined with COVID-19 since Dec. 8, the National Health Commission announced. It said those 'deaths related to COVID' occurred in hospitals, which means anyone who died at home would not be included in the numbers.
"The report would more than double China's official COVID-19 death toll to 10,775 since the disease was first detected in the central city of Wuhan in late 2019. China has counted only deaths from pneumonia or respiratory failure in its official COVID-19 death toll, a narrow definition that excludes many deaths that would be attributed to COVID-19 in other places.... [As of January 20, the Worldometers website still reports 5,202 Covid deaths in China since the start of the pandemic. - gd]
"Hospitals across the country have been overwhelmed with patients, and funeral homes and crematoriums have struggled to handle the dead.
"Infection numbers now appear to be falling based on a decline in the number of patients visiting fever clinics, said a National Health Commission official, Jiao Yahui. The daily number of people going to those clinics peaked at 2.9 million on Dec. 23 and had fallen by 83 per cent to 477,000 on Thursday, according to Jiao....
"Dr. Albert Ko, an infectious disease physician and professor of public health at the Yale School of Public Health, said the number of COVID-19 deaths China is reporting may be a "significant underestimation'.... 'In order to be counted as a case, you have to be at a place where they can say you fulfilled all the requirements, and that's at a hospital.' Hospitals in China, he said, are located mostly in large cities where COVID-19 outbreaks have been reported, not in isolated rural areas. 'This is the Lunar New Year, people are travelling, going to the countryside where the population is vulnerable,' Ko said. 'We're really worried about what's going to happen in China as this outbreak moves to the countryside'....
"The health commission said the average age of people who died since Dec. 8 is 80.3 years, and 90.1 per cent are 65 and older. It said more than 90 per cent of people who died had cancer, heart or lung diseases or kidney problems....
"The U.S., South Korea, Canada and other governments have imposed virus-testing and other controls on people arriving from China. Beijing retaliated on Wednesday by suspending the issuance of new visas to travellers from South Korea and Japan."
Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/china-updated-covid-death-toll-1.6714255
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