China deletes Covid mortality data after citizens discover huge surge in deaths in one region after lockdown rules were axed

According to reports, Chinese officials have removed Covid death figures after it emerged that the number of deaths in an affluent area had soared following the government’s sudden relaxation of strict Covid lockdown rules.

The number of reported cremations in the coastal province of Zhejiang is reported to have increased 73 percent in the first quarter of 2023 from a year earlier.

The recorded number, 171,000, is significantly higher than the 99,000 and 91,000 deaths reported in the same period in 2022 and 2021. FT reports.

Bodies piled up in crematoria after Xi Jinping’s government revealed late last year it would review its Covid restrictions, but no Covid-19 deaths were recorded.

The revelation comes after China was accused of “suppressing information” instead of warning the world about Covid and underestimating the true number of deaths.

Low immunity – due to poor vaccination coverage and a lack of previous infections following strict lockdowns – is believed to have led to an increase in coronavirus cases in early 2023. Image is a file image of a medical worker in Zhejiang province last year

Hospitals filled with Covid patients after China’s lengthy lockdown eased, and now authorities have failed to release detailed and accurate figures.

China has not released data on the number of cremation services in the fourth quarter of 2022, preventing the public from accessing figures that have been published quarterly since 2007.

The Ministry of Civil Affairs deleted the figure from the quarterly publication of national data on civil affairs, while provinces also seemed to be withholding information. South China Morning Mail reported last month.

Access to such datasets helps researchers assess how the virus has spread among the population.

Willy Lam, a senior fellow at think tank The Jamestown Foundation, said Zhejiang’s data was only a small part of the bigger picture, accusing China of covering up shortcomings in its handling of the pandemic.

“Publishing all this death data would be very helpful to investigators, but it would tarnish Xi Jinping’s status and show how his government has mishandled the sudden lifting of zero Covid controls,” he told the FT.

Some experts are now saying Covid may have originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Here you can see security personnel standing guard during a WHO visit in 2021

Earlier this month, Dr Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of the medical journal The Lancet, told the UK government’s Covid inquiry that Beijing has failed to notify international health authorities of the burgeoning virus threat.

He also called for laboratories working with highly dangerous microbes to be subject to “stricter international regulations.”

Dr. Horton told the probe: “The initial response of local government officials in Wuhan was to withhold information, not report information.

‘The first signal came via pro-MED. It did not reach the World Health Organization (WHO) through the official channels of the Chinese government.’

In December, there were fears that massive infections among the Chinese population would lead to a new wave of the virus that would go global there.

Up to 250 million people contracted Covid in China in the first 20 days of December, officials estimated at the time.

China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention said 18 percent of the population was infected after Beijing eased strict lockdown measures.

Low immunity – due to poor vaccination coverage and a lack of previous infections – is believed to have caused the surge.

The origin of Covid-19 has also been linked to China by the authors of two United Nations reports examining where it came from.

Epidemiologists Colin Butler and Delia Randolph said in January they believe a lab leak was the most likely cause of Covid-19.