China may not report several dozen COVID-19 deaths in hospitals and nursing homes in Shanghai, where tens of millions of people are still locked up and where the last official death was recorded more than two years ago.
The BBC said this week that at least 27 unvaccinated patients in a single hospital had their cause of death listed as “underlying physical conditions,” according to official documents. He spoke to hospital staff and saw correspondence sent to relatives of the deceased. outbreak, its report said Saturday.
Shanghai’s localized pandemic measures were lifted to a citywide lockdown on March 27, but its infection numbers are still not peaking in the latest wave caused by the highly transmissible variant of Omicron. Despite the record of nearly 300,000 positive cases in the past month, fewer than 20 patients have experienced severe symptoms, officials said.
The existing increase in cases also resulted in exactly 0 deaths, according to official data. The last COVID death in the city was reported on April 8, 2020, more than 24 months ago.
The BBC said there is “evidence of widespread infections among many patients at 12 other facilities” in Shanghai.
“A relative of a patient at a nursing home in Shanghai told us that the doctors and caregivers who worked there informed him that everyone at the center had tested positive,” the report says. “It has a capacity of about three hundred patients. “
The British broadcaster warned that underreporting could be related to China’s strict criteria for confirming COVID deaths, which require evidence of pneumonia lung damage, demonstrated through research, and likely also the absence of other underlying physical conditions.
With China’s most populous city, home to some 25 million people, still being hit by the virus, it is not quickly clear whether reported deaths of the elderly will be retrospectively attributed to COVID.
China’s National Health Commission responded to Newsweek’s request for comment ahead of publication.
On Sunday, Shanghai’s growth organization still accounted for more than 95 percent of all positive cases in the country. Although officials announce the very low number of critical cases and 0 deaths every day, there is no indication that the “0- The “COVID” policy imposed through the central government will be abandoned, despite the high prices for the economy and society.
Beijing’s political strategy for maintaining social stability during the pandemic is to get a setback in its richest city and largest maritime hub. Clashes have erupted in gated communities, where citizens are locked in their apartments and without supplies, or transported to poorly stocked centralized quarantine. facilities.
Images of social grievances, adding communal protests, are censored and removed from Chinese social media sites every hour. Residents are also encouraged not to communicate with foreign press on the stage on the ground, according to Stephen McDonell, the BBC’s China correspondent. .
“The #Shanghai police contacted the citizens and warned them to talk to foreign media about the situation of #Covid in the city, saying that it is a violation of legislation and regulations. Of course it isn’t, but in #Chine, the law is what the Party needs to be,” McDonell tweeted Sunday.
“#Shanghai officials deserve to know that the Party’s reputation among other people is being shattered in this city due to the blockade of #Covid,” he wrote.
The Omicron wave spread to neighboring Jiangsu Province, as well as the production center of Guangzhou Province to the south. Public fitness restrictions already exist in cities and districts where positive cases have been discovered.
Reporting on the city’s newest COVID scenario on April 17, the Shanghai Health Commission wrote: “We will have to relentlessly apply the general rules of ‘dynamic COVID 0’ and do everything imaginable to publicize the COVID 0 strategy in society. “