200 million Chinese elderly in danger

The World Health Organization has sounded the alarm. The increase in infections during the Lunar New Year festivities is inevitable. The authorities do not provide data. However, some unofficial indicators point to an unprecedented number of deaths in the elderly population. Xi Jinping risks losing prestige (and power).

Beijing () – The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that the pandemic crisis in China will worsen coinciding with the Lunar New Year festivities. 200 million elderly people are especially at risk, most of whom have not even been vaccinated against Covid-19.

The lunar new year, which begins on January 21 and during which hundreds of millions of Chinese people move massively, comes just weeks after Xi Jinping’s abrupt abandonment of the zero-covid policy. The Chinese government decided to lift the draconian health restrictions in early December, pressured by the unusual popular protests.

Although the authorities do not provide official data, the health outlook is very complicated. Hospitals are overflowing with patients, especially in less-equipped rural areas, a situation that is aggravated by the lack of staff, who have also contracted the virus. There is a shortage of flu medicines in pharmacies (or they are sold at inflated prices), and there is no civil society capable of providing help with volunteer work.

Observers note that since the reopening, the number of elderly deaths has reached unprecedented levels. The long lines in the crematoriums are already known. The same thing had happened at the beginning of the pandemic in Wuhan (Hubei), where the lung disease first appeared.

Unofficial calculations are possible thanks to information disseminated by “local management units” (Danwei), university bulletins and news circulating on the web. For example, the number of deaths of retired teachers is notable.

As Nikkei Asia reports, in various parts of the country lawyers have petitioned the authorities to protect the elderly population. Above all, they ask that large quantities of effective drugs be imported from abroad and that as many as possible be produced on the domestic market. It would take vaccines from other countries, more effective than national ones, and a broader vaccination campaign.

The WHO has criticized the Chinese government for not providing accurate data. This opacity is in line with Beijing’s attitude when the pandemic broke out and denied that there was a health emergency in the country.

According to official statistics, China recorded just over 10 million deaths in 2021. Pending last year’s figures, studies conducted in other countries predict more than a million deaths from Covid in 2023.

Analysts note that the regime wants to save face at all costs. Their power is also based on the consensus of the majority of the population, which directly or indirectly contributes to the implementation of national policies. Without public support, Xi and his associates could not survive politically and, to retain it, they must achieve concrete results. A humanitarian catastrophe caused by Covid, added to the failed recovery of the economy, would have consequences for Chinese society, as occurred with the Maoist disasters of the Great Leap Forward (1958-61) and the Cultural Revolution (1966-76).

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