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Josephine Ma

China’s National Health Commission has finally done it – it has stopped releasing its tally of Covid-19 cases.
The NHC numbers have been largely irrelevant since the central government broke with its long-standing zero-Covid policy and abandoned compulsory PCR tests.
Not even positive cases detected through rapid antigen tests were counted in the official toll.
So while legions of users wrote online about the deaths of relatives with severe pneumonia and the struggle to arrange funerals, the NHC reported just 4,103 new confirmed cases around the country and no new deaths on Friday.
The gap between lived reality and the official line could not have been greater. Then, in a brief statement on Sunday, the NHC said it would no longer release its case numbers.
It has yet to offer a more realistic way of assessing the progress of the disease across the country, leaving residents to find their own course through an information-free zone.
But an apparently leaked NHC memo posted online offers some better signals.
The unverified document says that about 248 million people around the country were infected from December 1 to 20, accounting for around 17.56 per cent of the population. And about half of the population in Beijing and Sichuan province had contracted the coronavirus.
Why has China struggled to vaccinate the elderly against Covid-19?
The figures were in line with expert estimates, and suggest the government intends to to allow the virus to sweep through the country to build herd immunity.
Nevertheless, there is still no information disclosure about how fast the virus is sweeping through communities or the scope of infections.
Another information gap is the number of Covid-related deaths. Unlike Hong Kong and many other jurisdictions, Beijing has made it clear it will not include deaths that are not directly caused by Covid-19, meaning many Covid-related deaths caused by complications of underlying diseases are not in the count.
The lack of mortality data means people can only guess the fatality rate of the new variants on populations with no hybrid immunity, as well as the effectiveness of vaccines, especially the new boosters being rolled out in China.
Data and communication are essential to the success of any response to a public health emergency. Accurate numbers are crucial for policymaking and research, while public awareness helps people comply with those policies.


China has a strong apparatus for rolling out propaganda campaigns. But true communication requires information transparency, the freedom for scientists to express their views and the power of the people to make informed choices.
These factors add up to public trust, without which sustained compliance is impossible.
China has relied on strong propaganda campaigns, big data and neighbourhood officials to enforce its zero-Covid policy.
However, public compliance broke down in November when protests erupted in multiple cities. The protests were partly a result of the trust deficit in government data and narratives, and partly because the public could no longer bear the collateral damage such as food shortages, poor access to healthcare and prolonged lockdowns.


In the past three years, the government’s line has been carefully designed to achieve certain policy goals.
For example, asymptomatic cases were not disclosed early in the pandemic to keep the appearance of a low number of infections. This only encouraged the public to ignore the dangers of transmission via asymptomatic cases, and it took public pressure for the government to give those figures.
State media have also repeatedly highlighted the large number of Covid-related deaths in Western countries to justify the zero-Covid policy. Now government officials and advisers are saying deaths from the Omicron variants are rare and most infections are asymptomatic cases.
The narrative flip-flops and selective disclosure of information to achieve certain policy goals will only aggravate public distrust in government.
Some municipal authorities are leading the way out of this maze.
Dongguan officials, for example, told the residents that between 250,000 and 300,000 people were being infected each day, based on computer modelling and expert assessments.
The health authorities also admitted that more than 2,500 medical staff in the city’s public hospitals and welfare system tested positive but were still working to meet the public needs.
Qingdao in the eastern province of Shandong also told the public their estimate: 490,000-530,000 people are becoming infected each day.
These disclosures are good steps to restore some public confidence. More should be done if the government wants to have an effective response for future public health crises.


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Coronavirus China

Why China’s selective Covid data adds up to public distrust

There is a big gap between the official Covid numbers and the lived experience of people in China. Photo: AP

Why has China had such a struggle vaccinating the elderly against Covid-19?

Illustration: Lau Ka-kuen

An elderly woman is wheeled into the fever clinic at a hospital in Beijing on December 11. Photo: AP

An elderly resident of Guizhou province’s Danzhai county receives a jab of Covid-19 vaccine near his home on December 12. Photo: AFP

An elderly couple walk past a vaccination site in Beijing on December 7. Photo: EPA-EFE

China stops declaring daily Covid cases as wave strains hospitals, funeral services

Nurses get ready for their shift outside  a fever clinic at a hospital  in Beijing, as the Covid surge continues. Photo: Reuters 

Beijing’s Covid wave may have peaked but China’s tsunami of cases is months from easing: experts

Medical workers are seen outside a fever clinic at a hospital in Beijing on Friday as the city battles a wave of cases. Photo: Reuters

A delivery worker walks in a near-empty shopping area in Beijing on Friday. Photo: Bloomberg

China must import mRNA vaccines to stop Covid-19 ‘disaster’, US health experts say

Chinese-made Covid-19 jabs are not as effective as foreign mRNA shots such as the Comirnaty vaccine by Pfizer-BioNTech, according to health experts. Photo: AFP

News

China

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Coronavirus

Analysis & Opinion


The population is operating in an information vacuum, unsure of how quickly the coronavirus is spreading and how many people it is killing
The government’s narrative flip-flops are doing nothing to build confidence



The population is operating in an information vacuum, unsure of how quickly the coronavirus is spreading and how many people it is killing.


Health in China

Disease

Coronavirus pandemic

Coronavirus pandemic: All stories

Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


Column

Opinion | Why China’s selective Covid data adds up to public distrust

The population is operating in an information vacuum, unsure of how quickly the coronavirus is spreading and how many people it is killing The government’s narrative flip-flops are doing nothing to build confidence

The population is operating in an information vacuum, unsure of how quickly the coronavirus is spreading and how many people it is killing

The government’s narrative flip-flops are doing nothing to build confidence