More than a month after China started seeing an exponential surge in COVID cases, the country has only reported two virus deaths, defying the experience of other, more vaccinated and better resourced places as they reopened and fueling suspicion the true scale of fatalities is being hidden.
The swift abandonment of COVID zero has seen infections explode, especially in Beijing, which has seen shortages of medicine, overwhelmed hospital staff and deserted streets as residents stay home sick or to avoid the virus. That aligns with what other places experienced as they shifted from eliminating COVID to living with it — except for the lack of officially reported deaths.
Over the weekend, China reported its first fatalities since COVID zero was dismantled earlier this month. In total, the country has declared just 11 COVID deaths among its 1.4 billion people since Nov. 19, which was more than a week after the government’s first tentative steps toward loosening virus policy.
