14 Jan. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Chinese government has confirmed that almost 60,000 people died in medical centers across the country in cases related to the coronavirus between December 8 and January 12, according to the latest balance presented this Saturday by the National Health Commission.
Specifically, the health authorities registered 59,938 deaths, 5,503 of them due to respiratory failure. The rest were attributed to previous pathologies directly worsened by COVID-19.
It should be noted that, recently, the Chinese authorities adopted a policy that only identified those killed by COVID-19 as those who died from a respiratory condition directly caused by the virus, and not those who succumbed to previous illnesses aggravated by the same, as this balance incorporates.
The average age of the deceased is 80.3 years and nine out of ten deceased were 65 years of age or older, according to the balance, presented by the director of the commission, Jiao Yahui, and collected by the ‘South China Morning Post’.
Jiao has indicated, however, that the current wave of cases seems to have reached its peak and that the number of hospitalizations has decreased in recent days “both in cities and in rural areas.”
China opened its borders for the first time last week after almost three years of isolation, in another step towards the end of its ‘Covid Zero’ policy designed to stop the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, and despite the explosion of cases registered during the previous weeks.
