China stops declaring daily Covid cases as wave strains hospitals, funeral services
- Centre for disease control will publish relevant pandemic information, National Health Commission says
- Daily case figures meaningless after compulsory tests abandoned, as Covid tsunami sparks shortages of fever and pain drugs, and antigen test kits
“From now on, [we] will not release the daily pandemic information,” the National Health Commission said in a brief statement on Sunday.
“The Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention will publish relevant pandemic information for reference and research.”
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Inside an overcrowded Beijing hospital struggling with Covid surge in China
The NHC did not give any reason for the change nor the likely frequency of future data release by the CDC, a public health agency under the commission.
The NHC had released daily figures on Covid-19 infections since January 21, 2020 – during China’s first coronavirus outbreak in the central city of Wuhan.
The daily releases had served as authoritative references to the scale of outbreaks under China’s erstwhile strict zero-Covid policy – with details on infections, whether confirmed and asymptomatic, domestic and imported – and the death toll.
However, the figures have become meaningless since compulsory testing was abandoned as part of easing several zero-Covid measures earlier this month.
China reported 4,128 cases and no new deaths on Saturday, a week after it had narrowed the definition of Covid-19 deaths to only count those who died of respiratory failure caused by the coronavirus.