“These figures would suggest that China is having a very mild wave, with very few deaths per case,” Louise Blair, head of vaccines and epidemiology at the London-based predictive health analytics firm Airfinity, said. “It would be the lowest of any country/region abandoning a zero COVID policy.”

It could be that many of the country’s deaths occurred in nursing care facilities or at home, explaining some of the undercount, she said, as the latest disclosure only counted hospital deaths. Reports of overwhelmed crematoriums around the country suggest excess mortality is at a high level.

The group currently estimates China’s total COVID-related death count is about 390,000, with a potential range of 77,000 to 945,000 based on fatalities seen in other countries, she said.

WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus welcomed the new numbers from China on the weekend, saying they allowed for a better understanding of the situation and the potential impact of the COVID wave on the country. He also asked Beijing to continue sharing such information and provide a more detailed breakdown of data by province over time.

New definition

China narrowed the definition of COVID mortality after it dismantled its zero-tolerance approach, with health authorities asking hospitals to limit COVID deaths to those who died from respiratory failure after contracting the virus.

Loading

That led to a dearth of deaths reported throughout December and early January. Of the 60,000 COVID deaths disclosed over the weekend, a little more than 9 per cent succumbed to respiratory failure, the NHC said. The rest died of underlying diseases following a COVID infection, the agency said.

The number of deaths is expected to increase as the virus continues its relentless trek across the country, since mortality tends to lag infections by a few weeks, officials said. The Lunar New Year Holiday, which starts on January 21 and involves millions of people travelling to their hometowns, could increase its spread, said Ali Mokdad, a professor at the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation and chief strategy officer for population health at the University of Washington.

Loading

The group’s modelling efforts forecast 1.2 million to 1.6 million deaths in China by the end of 2023, depending on what mitigation measures the country puts in place, Mokdad said.

China is capable of accurately tracking COVID mortality despite the size of its current outbreak, UCLA’s Zhang said, thanks to data from its public security, civil administration and hospital systems.

“More detailed information and transparent data on China’s coronavirus situation need to be shared with the World Health Organisation, other countries and China’s own people,” he said.

Bloomberg