Only seven deaths were recorded after the reopenings that forced the protests against the confinement. Hospitals full, there is a lack of medicines and there are not enough respirators. It is likely that the regime is minimizing the number of victims for political reasons. Xi Jinping’s mistake: using resources for quarantines instead of allocating them to hospital care.
Beijing () – After the sudden easing of restrictions against Covid-19, accelerated by popular protests at the end of November, China is facing a new pandemic emergency. Despite this, the official number of victims remains very low (5,241), fueling the usual suspicion that the regime falsifies the statistics for political reasons and social control.
Since Xi Jinping’s zero-COVID policy was abandoned on December 8, the government has recorded just seven coronavirus deaths despite the skyrocketing number of patients in hospitals, a lack of ventilators for intensive care, drug shortages and the high demand for cremations for the deceased.
On December 20, the health authorities specified that only infected people who have died of pneumonia or respiratory problems are considered victims of Covid. However, Reuters reveals that the Chinese doctors themselves affirm that the number of infections and deaths are underestimated, among other things because after the reopening, swab tests have decreased significantly.
According to the latest forecasts from the Health Metrics and Evaluation of the University of Washington, in 2023 the Covid could kill more than a million Chinese. The peak of infections and deaths should be reached in early April. Above all, an uptick in infections is feared for next month, when the Lunar New Year holidays are celebrated.
Analysts fear that for political reasons the government is concealing the true impact of lifting draconian pandemic restrictions. Many observers, especially outsiders, have always questioned the reliability of Chinese data, especially economic data. The official figures -almost always positive- often contrast with the real situation.
In September 2021, the central government launched a crackdown on the often false and inflated economic statistics of the provinces. The previous year, Prime Minister Li Keqiang had ordered local leaders to “tell the truth” about the economic situation of the territories they administer, the only way to achieve the objectives proposed by the central government, and the same is true of Covid.
As it stands, the outlook is not the best for Xi. In all probability, the provincial administrations have been left with few funds to buy the necessary medical equipment for the hospital treatment of Covid; local entities, already heavily indebted, have invested almost all their resources in quarantine facilities and mass testing.
As Nikkei Asia points out, with two de facto prime ministers at the helm of the central administration – the outgoing Li Keqiang and his likely successor Li Qiang – the management of the health emergency is chaotic, if not out of control.
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