China’s National Health Commission (NHC) ceased releasing daily Covid-19 data on Sunday, claiming the data suffered from reliability issues, as the nation seeks to abandon its “zero-Covid” policies and complete the reopening of its economy.
In a statement, China’s National Health Commission said, “Relevant COVID information will be published by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention for reference and research.” The commission did not say why the change was made, nor did it state how often the data will be updated.
The sudden cessation of data released on the extent of the infection’s spread comes as Beijing began to ease its onerous “zero-Covid” policies, which would see entire cities locked down, and extensive testing regimes begin over a handful of new cases. The measures had battered the Chinese economy, and caused major companies such as Apple to look at relocating out of China, over the inability to do business under such restrictions.
Even as infections surged to record numbers with the easing of health measures, the NHC had claimed there were no Covid deaths for four days straight, before ending the flow of data. China had changed which deaths it classified as Covid deaths, limiting it to deaths from pneumonia or respiratory failure due to Covid.
Airfinity, a health data firm based out of Britain had estimated that last week, there were more than a million infections in China, and 5,000 deaths per day.
As Covid cases began reaching record-breaking levels in late November and early December, the NHC stopped recording asymptomatic infections, which hampered the ability to track the virus’ spread.
As China made the decision to abandon its zero-Covid policies in favor of reopening the economy, official figures appeared to become unreliable, as the government scaled back testing and the government was accused of downplaying infections and deaths.
However even the United States scaled back its Covid-reporting, switching from daily updates to weekly, as the virus’ virulence waned, to lessen the burden of reporting on local areas.
Since Beijing eased the restrictions it has ceased providing data on new Covid hospitalizations to the World Health Organization. The WHO has speculated there may be so many new cases that it has become difficult to tally the data.
There have been models in recent days predicting China may end up suffering as many as 2 million deaths from the virus as it spreads into more rural areas, where people have no encountered it, and prior immunity may be rare. Experts say the elderly and the immunocompromised will be particularly vulnerable.
Reports indicate the virus is placing a heavy burden on China’s healthcare system, with staff asked to work even while sick, and retired workers being brought back to help deal with the surge of new cases.
Exerts note, the upcoming Lunar New Year may prove particularly challenging, as huge numbers of people travel to see family and return home.
