CCP Still Concealing Death Data as COVID-19 Continues Spreading in China

A mourner carries the cremated remains of a loved one as he and others wear traditional white funeral clothing, during a funeral in Shanghai on Jan. 14, 2023. Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

The Chinese communist regime stopped releasing death and cremation data for the country at the end of 2022, when the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) suddenly abandoned its draconian “zero-COVID” policy and control measures, including COVID-19 testing.

Since then, many Chinese people, including medical doctors and nurses across the country, have continued to report severe respiratory infections resembling COVID-19. The sudden boom in business for local funeral homes has also been noted on social media and reported to The Epoch Times, indicating that COVID-19 has never disappeared in China.

Experts have shed light on China’s disappearing death data in recent days.

In the past, the CCP’s Ministry of Civil Affairs usually released the previous quarter’s data on the nation’s marriages, divorces, deaths, and cremations within three months. However, it changed after the massive wave of COVID-19 infections at the end of 2022. The civil affairs data for the fourth quarter of 2022 were not released until June 9, 2023. Deaths and cremation data were not included.

The Provincial Department of Civil Affairs of Zhejiang, one of China’s most populated provinces, released cremation data for the first quarter of that year on July 13, 2023.

The release attracted media attention but was quickly deleted. Major Chinese media outlet Caixin also reported on these data on July 17, 2023, but the article was also quickly removed. However, international media outlets reposted the data and Caixin’s article.

Zhejiang’s official death data show that in the first quarter of 2023, the number of cremations in the province’s funeral homes was 171,000, which was 72,000 more than in the first quarter of the previous year.

Media outlet Bloomberg noted that the data were “providing a rare insight into the scale of mortality due to the government’s sudden relaxation of coronavirus restrictions in December.”

When the CCP suddenly abandoned all COVID-19 control measures, including the three-year-long restrictive lockdowns, without preparation, it triggered a massive wave of infection in China that lasted into February 2023. According to a leaked note from the CCP’s health officials’ closed-door meeting, nearly 250 million Chinese citizens were infected with COVID-19 in the first 20 days, as the Financial Times and Bloomberg first reported.

China’s health officials said that as much as 80 percent of the Chinese population was infected during that wave. Crematoriums and funeral homes across China were operating over capacity, with long queues for cremations, as reported by international media.

Chinese officials said nearly 60,000 people died from COVID-19 in the five weeks since restrictions were lifted. However, the international community has widely suspected that the real death toll was much higher.

Continuing Coverup

As of April 18, the latest data shown on the official website of the CCP’s Ministry of Civil Affairs were for the fourth quarter of 2023 and don’t include any death or cremation data.

The same is true of the data on the websites of Beijing, Hunan, and Guangdong’s civil affairs bureaus. The web pages of civil affairs data of Zhejiang, Heilongjiang, and Hainan provinces cannot be accessed from outside of China.

Wang He, a U.S.-based China affairs observer, told The Epoch Times on April 16 that after the CCP abandoned its COVID-19 restrictions at the end of 2022, there was a massive COVID-19 outbreak with a high mortality rate.

“The CCP wants to hide this, so it will never release the cremation data,” he said. “Because the numbers are too shocking, the CCP wants to cover them up forever.”

Mr. Wang said the CCP’s withholding of death data indicates that the COVID-19 outbreak in China is still ongoing and that the death toll is still huge.

“There are still many deaths,” he said. “Even if [the CCP] makes up a number, no one will believe it, and people may probe what’s behind the fake number. In order to avoid this risk, it simply keeps silent about it.”

U.S. microbiologist Sean Lin, an assistant professor at Feitian College, told The Epoch Times on April 15 that there are multiple reasons for the CCP’s withholding of death data.

Workers in protective gear handle a coffin at Dongjiao Funeral Parlor, reportedly designated to handle COVID-19 fatalities, in Beijing on Dec. 19, 2022. Bloomberg via Getty Images

“First, if the outside world can clearly see that China has a huge death toll from the COVID-19 outbreak and a sharp decline in population, it means that the size of the Chinese market is significantly reduced. This will cause foreign investment to withdraw faster. If the economy is in trouble, the CCP’s regime will be unstable,” he said.

The second reason is that the CCP is afraid that if the number of cremations significantly exceeds that during the COVID-19 pandemic after the regime announced that it had “defeated COVID-19,” then it would be unable to explain the discrepancy, according to Mr. Lin.

“[The CCP] can neither admit that data was falsified during the pandemic, nor that COVID-19 has never left China, nor that it is still concealing the number of deaths,“ he said. ”It also does not allow hospitals to conduct COVID-19 testing.”

Patients on beds set up in the atrium area of a busy hospital in Shanghai on Jan. 13, 2023. Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

As it has suspended all COVID-19 testing in hospitals, the CCP has attributed the waves of respiratory infections resembling COVID-19 symptoms in China to various pathogens and other causes, such as mycoplasma pneumonia, influenza A, and influenza B while deliberately avoiding any mention of COVID-19.

Mr. Lin said the CCP’s withholding of death data is to shift blame and that it is destroying COVID-19-related data as part of a coverup.

Since last month, members of the Chinese public in various regions have revealed to The Epoch Times that the CCP ordered hospitals and health systems to destroy all data on the COVID-19 pandemic.

A Chinese doctor who witnessed and participated in the destruction of COVID-19 data told The Epoch Times on March 10 that the erasing of data started in early 2023, soon after the COVID-19 restrictions were lifted. The destroyed data included patient records of hospital visits, vaccination records, emergency hospitalizations, symptoms, signed death certificates attributed to COVID-19, discussions on the cause of death, medication usage, documents signed by police indicating the cause of death was COVID-19, and cremation permits, according to the doctor.

Members of the Chinese public across the country are continuing to report suspected COVID-19 infections and many subsequent deaths to The Epoch Times and on social media.

Ning Haizhong contributed to this report.