China reports sharp drop in Covid deaths during Lunar New Year holiday

A total of 6,364 hospital patients with Covid-19 die from January 20 to 26, down by about half from a week earlier, according to CDC figures

The decrease mirrors trends in hospitalisations and severe illness, but doubts about Beijing’s health data still linger

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Health officials say China’s Covid-19 wave peaked by mid-January, avoiding a surge during the Lunar New Year travel rush. Photo: AFP

Published: 4:01pm, 29 Jan 2023

China reported a sharp drop in Covid-19 deaths among hospital patients during the Lunar New Year holiday, mirroring trends in hospitalisations and severe illness.

The Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said it recorded 6,364 deaths from January 20 to 26, down from 12,658 between January 13 and 19.

Covid-related respiratory failure caused 289 deaths in the seven-day period from January 20, while 6,075 deaths were recorded among Covid-19 patients who had underlying diseases.

China’s official death toll has been called into question. According to some experts, Beijing’s narrow criteria for classifying Covid-19 deaths could underestimate the true scale of the outbreak, making it difficult to develop strategies to protect the public.

The National Health Commission (NHC) announced last month that only deaths caused by pneumonia and respiratory failure would be classified as deaths caused by Covid-19. Jiao Yahui, an official with the commission, later said China would report deaths from Covid-related respiratory failure as well as deaths of other patients infected with the coronavirus.

According to CDC data, there are now 215,958 Covid-19 patients in China’s hospitals – about 45 per cent of the number recorded last week – and 26,156 of them are classified as severe cases, down by about half from a week earlier.

China stopped releasing daily Covid-19 case numbers in December following controversy over its low death figures as an Omicron tsunami swept the nation.

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