China confirms surge in COVID deaths Nearly 60,000 people with COVID have died in China since early December, Beijing’s health authorities said on Saturday, in what the World Health Organization called a “rapid and intense wave” of infection in the country.
Previously, authorities had been recording low numbers of deaths since draconian zero-COVID restrictions were lifted last month. But international health experts had cast serious doubts on official figures amid reports of long queues at crematoriums and estimates of infection rates of between 80 percent and 90 percent in some parts of the country.
Between December 8 and January 12, there were 59,938 COVID-related deaths in Chinese hospitals, Jiao Yahui, head of the Bureau of Medical Administration within the National Health Commission, said at a media briefing on Saturday.