Chinese Medical Workers Reveal the Situation on the Ground as Official Death Toll Stays in Single Digits

China's CDC reports no more than 5 daily deaths since Dec. 21

Medical workers arrive with a patient at a fever clinic in Beijing, on Dec. 9, 2022. Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

As Chinese authorities continue to downplay the death toll from the country’s ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, health care workers and social media posts tell a dramatically different story.

In data released on Jan. 9, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported 14,171 new confirmed cases across the country’s 31 provinces, with only three new deaths. The agency’s daily statistics going back to Dec. 21 report no more than five deaths per day.

China has faced a surge in COVID-19 cases in recent weeks after protests in November led to an abrupt lifting of the harsh zero-COVID policies that kept millions in lockdown for three years.

First-hand accounts depict overwhelmed hospitals and a massive number of deaths from the virus.

Xiao Ming (a pseudonym) a health care worker at Anshan People’s Hospital in northeastern China’s Liaoning Province, told The Epoch Times on Dec. 30 that “more and more patients die before they can receive timely treatment … Every day sees many people dying; the morgue is full of bodies.” Bodies line the halls of the hospital and administrative offices, Xiao said.

“There are so many patients and there is no solution for it,” said Xiao. As hospitals deal with staff shortages and exhausted personnel, authorities have done little to help China’s collapsing medical system, he said. Instead, they continue to gloss over death statistics.

Party Line

A Jan. 1 article from China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency backs the official data, complaining that China’s COVID response is effective but is being “deliberately ignored” by Western media.

The article quotes epidemiologist Liang Wannian, head of the National Health Commission’s expert response team, who said on Dec. 27 that the first wave of the epidemic hit without any “large-scale serious illness or deaths.”

Funeral Industry Booming

However, according to social media posts, China’s crematoriums are overwhelmed. Video included in a Dec. 28 Twitter post shows dozens of bodies queued up awaiting cremation at a funeral home in northeast China’s Jilin province.

A Twitter video from Dec. 27 shows an underground garage, temporarily converted into a morgue to handle overflow at a funeral home in Anshan. In the video, workers maneuver a casket into place; caskets are placed two deep in what would normally be parking spaces.

Meanwhile, a Dec. 28 video shows damage at a crematorium in Tangshan, in China’s northern Hebei Province, which caught on fire after operating around the clock.

The Epoch Times tried to reach several crematoriums in Tangshan and Anshan, but phone lines were busy.

Residents Blindsided

Wang Tao (a pseudonym), a resident of Beijing’s Haidian district, speaking to The Epoch Times on Dec. 30, said that China did not give any notice prior to the sudden lifting of the zero-COVID restrictions.

There was no attempt to stock up on the most basic medical necessities, Wang said, at a time of year when other viruses such as the flu also run rampant.

“It is weird that the government makes the whole country lockdown during summer and autumn, but opens in winter, the time when the virus is most likely to spread,” he said.

Wang noted that the virus began to spread just as the CCP opened its borders, allowing travel abroad. “The aim of [the CCP] is seemingly trying to bring the virus to the world again, like what happened three years ago.”

Critics say that in December 2019, when COVID-19 first broke out in Wuhan, China kept quiet, leading to the worldwide spread of the virus.

Outside Data: Deaths Doubling Weekly

Simulated data provided by Airfinity, a British health data company, showed about 9,000 people dying from COVID-19 each day in China as of Dec. 29, almost twice the previous week’s prediction. That tally was updated on Jan. 9 to estimate 18,900 daily deaths.

Airfinity forecasts that COVID-19 deaths in China will peak around Jan. 23, with deaths at about 25,000 a day.