A recent wave of respiratory infections in China has overloaded hospitals and crematoria, residents across the country told The Epoch Times.
Residents in different provinces recently told The Epoch Times that since January, major hospitals and crematoria have been packed, and they know many people who have had flu-like symptoms.
All of the interviewees provided only their surnames because of concerns about potential retaliation by authorities.
Hua, a villager in Tangshan, Hebei Province, said the big hospitals in the city are overcrowded, “like a busy market,” and crematoria are experiencing the same issue.
“The crematoriums are working nonstop to handle the number of people who died in the hospitals,” he said.
“My hometown is in a rural area. Many people have died here, too.
“We need to find people with connections [to authorities or funeral home workers] to help to cremate the deceased.
“It’s like the end of the world.”
He said that people of all ages have succumbed to this wave of respiratory infections. Based on the symptoms, he surmised that they had died from COVID-19.
“My aunt died from COVID-19,“ he said. ”Beijing controls the media and does not allow them to report it.”
Because of Chinese authorities’ past record of underreporting infections and covering up information, it is difficult to assess the true scale of the current outbreak.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) suspended COVID-19 testing in hospitals in December 2022 when it abruptly lifted its COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. Since then, self-testing kits have not been available in pharmacies.
Yao, a resident of Shijiazhuang, the provincial capital of Hebei with a population of about 11 million, said that two of his friends recently died.
He said that in the city, “there are very few people on the streets now; it’s very quiet, and it seems there are definitely fewer people.”
“Few people are on the subway and buses; there are no traffic jams anymore,” Yao said.
Yao said that he believes that what the authorities refer to as influenza A is actually COVID-19 and that “they have just changed its name.”
“Many people have the same symptoms as COVID-19, such as the white lungs. The medicines used are the same as well,” he said.
Influenza A, COVID-19, and human infection with avian influenza share similar respiratory symptoms, according to Sean Lin, assistant professor in the biomedical science department at U.S.-based Feitian College and a former microbiologist for the U.S. Army.
“Influenza subtypes, COVID-19, and avian influenza are spreading simultaneously, leading to widespread infections and many deaths,” an epidemic prevention professional in mainland China, who asked to remain anonymous for safety concerns, told The Epoch Times last month.
Lin attributed the recent surge in infections to “the simultaneous spread of multiple viruses and the weakening of people’s immune systems.”
“The most worrying thing is whether the highly pathogenic avian influenza is spreading among the human population,” he said.
Weakened Immune Systems
Yao pointed out that while people usually recover from the common cold, many are now unable to survive it, adding that “many people have died, mostly those in their 40s and 50s.”One of his relatives, who works at a hospital’s emergency room, told him that many people have recently died from complications caused by respiratory illnesses, such as “heart disease, kidney disease, and cerebral infarction.”
Li, a resident of Zhumadian city, Henan Province, told The Epoch Times that he believes this wave of respiratory infections and deaths “results from the authorities’ mandatory COVID-19 vaccination in the past few years, which has led to a decline in the immunity of many people, causing repeated infections and complications.”
Zhang, a resident of Ankang city, Shaanxi Province, said that many people around him have been repeatedly infected by a respiratory virus and took a while to recover.
“Many people have developed serious illnesses and died because their bodies could not resist the diseases,” he said.
Zhang said he believes that the authorities’ mandates for COVID-19 vaccinations in recent years have contributed to a rise in sudden deaths.
Lin said: “The Chinese regime’s widespread vaccination efforts have, to some extent, led the virus to mutate into strains that can evade the immune system more effectively.
“This suggests that having more vaccines is not necessarily better—there are issues related to immune tolerance and immune escape.”
Coffins Sold Out
Li currently works in Xiamen, Fujian Province.“Since the start of the New Year, many young people have died, particularly in the north,” he said. “Dozens of my relatives, friends, clients, and colleagues have died—there are even more deaths outside my social circle.”
“Due to a large number of deaths, many funeral homes have added crematoriums,” Li said, adding that “in provinces with large populations, such as Henan, Anhui, and Jiangxi, natural burials are quietly permitted to alleviate the pressure on crematoriums.”
Zhang said that before and during the Chinese New Year, which was observed from Jan. 29 to Feb. 12, 11 elderly people died in his village.
“In our countryside, there are now many new graves in the fields and valleys,” he said.
Wang, a villager near Shijiazhuang, told The Epoch Times that many people have died in the area.
“In a small village with a population of 180, dozens of people died around the Chinese New Year,” he said.
Underreporting
In early 2023, the World Health Organization (WHO) said that China was underreporting the number of citizens who had died from COVID-19 infections.China experts, lawmakers, and human rights activists have suspected the CCP of underreporting and concealing infections and death tolls since the COVID-19 outbreak began in Wuhan, Hubei Province, in late 2019.
Amid the current nationwide respiratory infections, outsiders have questioned the latest infectious disease data released by Beijing.
According to a Feb. 14 report released by China’s National Administration of Disease Control and Prevention, more than 2.8 million mainland Chinese were infected with influenza in January—a sharp increase from the more than 1.5 million infections reported in December 2024—but only nine died.
Numerous locals, whistleblowers, and netizens suggest that the situation is much more serious than the Chinese regime’s official data indicate.
“Now, WHO is still unable to guarantee that it can obtain China’s real hospital data and information on the actual epidemic situation from the regime,” Lin said.
He said the WHO “has not learned any lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, and it has not been able to carry out effective internal reforms to eliminate corruption, redundant bureaucratic mechanisms, and CCP infiltration.”
