Is China underreporting its Covid numbers? What reports say

China is in the middle of an unprecedented health crisis with a massive surge in Covid cases. Reports coming from China show a large number of bodies piling up at hospitals, morgues, and crematorium grounds with days of waiting periods. The situation is so bad that crematoriums are operating around the clock, cadaver freezer boxes are full, and there is a five-to-six-day waiting list, a receptionist at a funeral parlor in Beijing’s Shunyi district told The Washington Post.

Also read: Covid variant BF.7 spreading like wildfire in China: How worried should you be?
 

But the authorities reported only five deaths on Tuesday and an average of 1,801 cases per day in the last week - a number that does not look convincing for many who have been tracking the crisis in China. The Chinese authorities reported five Covid deaths in the past two days, all in Beijing. These numbers were surprising for many as cases are being reported from all parts of the country, but the official number captured deaths only from Beijing.

China has also tweaked its policy of counting Covid deaths. Now, Beijing will consider only those deaths as Covid related where a person has died due to pneumonia and respiratory failure. Wang Guiqiang, an adviser to China's National Health Commission, said that deaths caused by pneumonia and respiratory failure will be classified as Covid deaths, while deaths caused by other underlying diseases, such as cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, will not be counted as infection-induced deaths.

Experts believe that this is done to downplay the numbers, which are expected to shoot up in the coming months. In fact, many mathematical models and studies predict close to millions of deaths in the next few months.

US-based Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington has projected half a million deaths by April next year and 1.6 million deaths by the end of 2023, if the infection continues at the current pace, according to the leading journal Nature. By March, the number of deaths in China could rise to close to 9,000 a day by the end of March.

The Wall Street Journal, in a report, said that China's official statistics for daily Covid infections and deaths are low. The country's National Health Commission reported 2,656 cases and five deaths on Monday. "But experts believe they vastly undercount the number of infections, and interviews with Chinese factory workers indicate the relaxed rules have resulted in many falling sick," WSJ said.

The report also stated that a fifth of workers at a Tesla factory remained absent, while the Volkswagen plant in Changchun city was not operating at full capacity because of the depleting workforce.

China's chief epidemiologist now says that 'the worst is yet to come', epidemiologist and health economist Eric Feigl-Ding said on Wednesday.