• Wave of illnesses has been spreading through China since restriction were lifted.
• The two death on Monday were the first confirmed by the NHC.
• The number of Covid fatalities in China may surpass 1.5 million.

On Monday, China reported its first Covid-related deaths in weeks, despite growing concerns that the official toll may not fully reflect the impact of the sickness that is ravaging urban areas since the government eased rigorous anti-virus measures.

The two fatalities on Monday were the first confirmed by the National Health Commission (NHC) since December 3, just days before Beijing declared it was removing restrictions that had mostly kept the virus in control for three years but had sparked large-scale demonstrations last month.

However, on Saturday, Reuters journalists saw hearses parked outside a designated Covid-19 cremation in Beijing and staff members transporting the deceased into the facility while wearing hazmat masks. Reuters was unable to immediately determine whether Covid was to blame for the deaths.

On China’s Twitter-like Weibo platform on Monday morning, a hashtag related to the two reported Covid deaths immediately rose to the top of the hot topics.

One user questioned, “What is the point of incomplete statistics? Another person commented, “Isn’t this defrauding the public?”

Only 5,237 Covid-related deaths have been reported in China officially during the pandemic, including the most recent two fatalities; this is a very low number by worldwide standards considering the country’s 1.4 billion people.

However, medical professionals have warned that China may pay a price for enacting such severe controls to protect a populace that currently lacks a natural defence against Covid-19 and has low vaccination rates among the elderly.

Some people fear In the upcoming months, the number of Covid fatalities in China may surpass 1.5 million.

Two state media journalists were claimed to have passed away after catching Covid on Friday, and a 23-year-old medical student was also believed to have passed away on Saturday, according to reputable Chinese news source Caixin. Which, if any, of these deaths were counted in the official death counts was not immediately clear.

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), a U.S. think tank, has a global health specialist named Yanzhong Huang. “The (official) number is certainly an undercount of Covid deaths,” Huang stated.

According to him, this “may reflect the state’s inability to adequately follow and monitor the illness condition on the ground after the breakdown of the mass PCR testing programme, but it may also be driven by efforts to avert mass hysteria over the increase of Covid deaths.”

As opposed to the 2,097 symptomatic illnesses reported the day before by the NHC, there were 1,995 on December 18.

But due to the recent softening, much less required PCR testing is being done, making infection rates a dubious indicator as well. Last Monday, the NHC ceased reporting asymptomatic cases, citing a decline in testing.

The first of three Covid waves expected this winter, according to China’s chief epidemiologist Wu Zunyou, has already hit the nation, which is more in keeping with what locals have reported feeling.

A 37-year-old Beijing university canteen employee named Liu told Reuters that he would estimate that 60 to 70 percent of his coworkers are currently infected. Liu asked to only be identified by his last name.

Although senior officials have recently played down the threat posed by the new Omicron strain of the virus, authorities are nonetheless worried about the elderly, who have resisted vaccination.

Officially, China has a vaccination rate of over 90%, but according to government data, this number reduces to 57.9% for those who have taken booster doses of the vaccine and to 42.3% for those who are 80 years of age or older.

China’s Xinhua news agency said on Sunday that medical professionals have been knocking on doors in Beijing’s Shijingshan neighbourhood offering to vaccinate elderly residents inside their homes.

The general public cannot access internationally developed vaccines in mainland China, which has depended on locally produced inactivated vaccines for its vaccine rollout.

The safety of China’s vaccinations is generally not questioned by the medical world, although some claim there are still concerns about their efficacy when compared to domestically produced mRNA equivalents.

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