The coronavirus is back in full force in China – but amazingly, this is not reflected in the official death toll. The People’s Republic has changed the calculation method for statistics. As a result, no corona deaths were reported this week in the country with 1.4 billion inhabitants.
After China waved goodbye to its rigorous zero-Covid policy, it was overwhelmed by a massive wave of infections. However, it is difficult to estimate how dramatic the situation actually is: with the relaxation of the measures, the obligation to test has also lapsed.
You are only considered deceased from Corona if you are no longer breathing
But while the country’s crematoriums are sounding the alarm about the sharp rise in deaths as they can no longer keep up with cremation, not a single corona death appears in official statistics this week: the criteria have been changed so that only more than virus died are those who also suffered directly from respiratory failure caused by the pathogen. Health official Wang Guiqiang reasoned that the leading cause of death after infection with the omicron variant was other conditions. “Old people have other underlying diseases, very few die directly from respiratory failure caused by corona,” says Guigiang.
Estimates assume that hundreds of thousands of deaths are to be expected. Yet the authorities of the People’s Republic speak only of a harmless “corona cold”. Infected people no longer have to go to the hospital, but can even go to their workplace if they have no or only mild symptoms. The state-controlled English-language daily “Global Times” hailed this approach as “a better balance between epidemic prevention and social and economic development”.
Patients are treated in hospital parking lots
In the metropolis of Wuhan, where the virus originated, hospitals are already completely flooded. Some patients have to be treated in their cars in hospital parking lots. IV tubes are placed next to the vehicles. Also in the capital Beijing, sick people have to queue for hours before they can get medical help.
Source: Krone
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