Scale of China’s Covid-19 outbreak will be known, but not yet: NHC

Evaluation under way to accurately calculate fatality rate, as China denies under-reporting deaths from the virus

Priority during surge is prevention and treatment, says Liang Wannian who leads the National Health Commission’s response team

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Shoppers return to Beijing’s malls, as part of China’s switch to living with Covid-19, which is surging across the country. Photo: AP

Published: 4:18pm, 30 Dec 2022Updated: 4:40pm, 30 Dec 2022

China has denied under-reporting Covid-19 deaths and said an evaluation of the true scale of its wave of infections is under way.

Liang Wannian, leader of the National Health Commission’s Covid-19 expert response team, said it was difficult to accurately calculate the fatality rate during a massive outbreak, with treatment and prevention the current priority.

“It is only after the wave when we can calculate the case fatality rate and death rate more accurately,” Liang told reporters at a briefing on Thursday.

The Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC) reported 14 deaths from Covid-19 from December 1-29 on Friday, bringing the national death toll from the virus to 5,247 since the start of the pandemic.

The numbers are in stark contrast to social media accounts of overwhelmed morgues and long queues at crematoriums since earlier this month when China abandoned its zero-Covid policy. Medical services are straining to cope and resources like drugs and devices are scarce.

An unverified document, purportedly leaked from the National Health Commission (NHC) and circulated on Chinese social media, estimated that more than 248 million people were infected in the first 20 days of December.

The NHC stopped reporting daily Covid-19 infections on December 25, saying that in future the China CDC would publish relevant pandemic information for reference and research.

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