China had almost 2 million excess deaths after the top of ‘zero-Covid,’ U.S. study finds

There have been almost 2 million excess deaths within the two months after China lifted its “zero-Covid” restrictions, a U.S. study found, contradicting official figures from Beijing which have been criticized as too low.

Researchers estimate there have been 1.87 million excess deaths from all causes amongst people 30 years and older from December 2022 to January, in accordance with the study from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle published Thursday. The deaths, which were observed across all mainland Chinese provinces, except Tibet, were predominantly amongst older people.

China’s strict zero-Covid policies, which included mass testing, border closures and prolonged citywide lockdowns, kept Covid cases and deaths to a minimum for much of the pandemic. But when the federal government abruptly lifted the restrictions in December after rare mass protests across the country, the virus was unleashed on 1.4 billion individuals who had barely been exposed to it.

The resulting wave of cases, driven by the highly transmissible omicron variant, brought an enormous increase in hospitalizations and deaths that experts say were underreported by officials. They pointed to anecdotal evidence, in addition to satellite imagery showing heightened activity at crematoriums and funeral homes.

The 1.87 million figure is way higher than the official data from China, which said about 60,000 Covid–related deaths had been recorded in health facilities from early December 2022 to Jan. 12.

It’s also consistent with estimates by other researchers, including a study by Zhanwei Du of the University of Hong Kong and Lauren Ancel Meyers of the University of Texas at Austin that found Covid could have killed greater than 1.4 million people in China from Dec. 16, 2022 to Jan. 19.

The estimate from the study released Thursday was based on obituaries published by three Chinese universities for each current and retired employees, in addition to searches on Baidu, a well-liked Chinese web search engine, for words akin to “cremation” and “burial.”

“Our study of excess deaths related to the lifting of the zero-Covid policy in China sets an empirically derived benchmark estimate,” the researchers wrote. “These findings are essential for understanding how the sudden propagation of Covid-19 across a population may impact population mortality.”

The study did seem like “near the actual data” based on the research available to date, said Jin Dong-yan, a virologist on the University of Hong Kong. The way in which the study estimates data will not be “scientifically rigorous,” but it surely is nonetheless an “objective” and “useful” attempt, Jin added.

Jin said the actual data could possibly be a couple of percentage points lower or higher than the study estimates. The university employees used as benchmarks by the study, most of whom are intellectuals living in cities, could also be characterised by a stronger self-preparatory awareness, higher vaccination rate, and more accessible health care resources, Jin said. This could possibly be offset since they might also have been more more likely to have underlying health conditions than normal people, Jin added.

“One of the best approach could be for the country to be honest and transparent, disclosing the whole lot just because it was done in previous years akin to 2018 and 2019,” Jin said.

Overall, China has reported fewer than 122,000 Covid-related deaths to the World Health Organization. America, by comparison, has reported greater than 1.1 million Covid-related deaths for the reason that start of the pandemic.

Chinese officials deny they’ve withheld Covid data from the international community, accusing the U.S., WHO and others of politicizing the pandemic. They are saying they’re still analyzing excess deaths and may have a more complete picture of the Covid death toll at a later date. 

Calls to China’s National Health Commission went unanswered Friday.