Chinese State Media Plays Down Severity of COVID-19 as More Countries Roll out Travel Curbs

Travellers walk with their luggage at the arrival hall of the Hong Kong International Airport on Dec. 30, 2022. Anthony Kwan/Getty Images

China’s state media is continuing to play down the number of COVID-19 cases in the country and is instead attempting to assure the public that the situation is under control.

The country reported just three new deaths from COVID-19 on Jan. 2, after reporting only one new death a day prior.

According to the latest figures released by the Chinese regime, the death toll in the country since the start of the pandemic now stands at 5,253. However, health officials believe that figure to be much higher in a country with a population of over 1.4 billion.

China recently scrapped its mass testing operation, which has made tracking official case figures difficult.

In an article published on Tuesday, People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), cited several experts as saying the illness caused by the virus was “relatively mild” for most people.

“Severe and critical illnesses account for 3 percent to 4 percent of infected patients currently admitted to designated hospitals in Beijing,” Tong Zhaohui, vice president of Beijing Chaoyang Hospital, told the newspaper.

However, a lack of preparation before the Chinese regime abruptly reversed its draconian zero-COVID policy in December has led to health services in the country being overwhelmed, morgues working at full capacity, and chronic shortages of drugs at pharmacies, according to reports.

Health workers move a COVID-19 patient at Tianjin First Center Hospital in Tianjin, China, on Dec. 28, 2022. Noel Cells/AFP via Getty Images

Lunar New Year Celebrations Could Prompt Increase in Cases

The reversal came after mass protests broke out across the country against the CCP’s draconian lockdowns.

More than 80 percent of those living in the southwestern Sichuan Province have been infected, local health authorities said.

In some cases, doctors are being forced to prioritize treating patients with no heartbeat or who have stopped breathing at overwhelmed hospitals throughout the country, according to a CBS News report.

A report released by the UK-based health data firm Airfinity on Dec. 29, estimated that around 9,000 people in China are probably dying each day from COVID-19.

Cumulative deaths in China since Dec. 1 have probably reached 100,000, with infections at 18.6 million, Airfinity said. The health data firm anticipates China’s COVID-19 infections to reach their first peak on Jan. 13, with 3.7 million cases a day.

The situation is likely to get worse amid the Lunar New Year celebrations later this month, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, vice provost of global initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania, told MSNBC on Monday.

Emanuel noted that the new COVID-19 variant XBB.1.5 is spreading rapidly in the United States and can “evade and outcompete” the other subvariants of the virus while avoiding the antibodies gained from previous infection or vaccination.

A subway staff member removed a poster for a COVID-19 health code used on entering the subway on Dec. 7, 2022, in Guangzhou in China's southern Guangdong province, following the easing of COVID-19 restrictions in the city. CNS/AFP via Getty Images

China to Reopen Borders

He added that he expects XBB.1.5 to be the dominant strain around the world soon, particularly in China where he believes there will be a large number of deaths owing to low immunity among the population.

Despite the number of new cases, China announced last week that it will reopen its borders on Jan. 8, prompting countries around the world to put in place negative testing requirements for all arrivals from China, including the United States, UK, Australia, Canada, France, India, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Spain, Malaysia, and Qatar.

Morocco has banned all arrivals from China, regardless of their nationality, while Belgium said it will test wastewater from planes from China for new COVID-19 variants.

In a press release on Dec. 28, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that passengers will need to present a negative COVID-19 result or proof of recovery before boarding a U.S.-bound flight from China.

The CDC said the move is intended to “slow the spread of COVID-19 in the United States during the surge in COVID-19 cases in the PRC [People’s Republic of China] given the lack of adequate and transparent epidemiological and viral genomic sequence data being reported from the PRC.”

The World Health Organization on Friday called on China’s health officials to regularly share specific and real-time information on the COVID-19 situation and invited Chinese scientists to present detailed data on viral sequencing at a meeting which is set to be held on Jan. 3.

Reuters contributed to this report.