Chongqing Residents Say City Is Experiencing a Wave of Illness and Death

Parents with children suffering from respiratory diseases line up at a children's hospital in Chongqing, China, on Nov. 23, 2023. CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images

Chongqing, the fourth largest Chinese city by urban population with about 16 million residents has experienced a renewed wave of illness with residents—unable to access information they trust—reporting crowded funeral homes, instances of sudden death, and pediatric clinics flooded with patients.

“But you don’t see any media report on it,” a resident told the Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times.

“About half of the students in my niece’s class have come down with fever,” Chen Xin (pseudonym), a resident of Chongqing’s Nan'an District, said on Dec. 12.

Another Wave

As an emergency alert, Tao Yuan, deputy chief physician of the Ophthalmology Department of Jinan Second People’s Hospital, posted a video online on Dec. 10 in which he said that the Chongqing pediatric clinics were experiencing a significant influx of patients, a phenomenon widespread in the nation. He added that children were having to endure long queues for medical care.

A Chinese blogger posted a video online on Dec. 11, explaining her 10-year-old daughter’s experience at a pediatric department: She had a fever and she was in pain but the wait was very long. When they finally got to see the doctor, there was a blood test and another endless wait for the result. She was diagnosed with multiple infections of various strains of influenza.

Chongqing resident Mr. Guo told The Epoch Times that there is a large number of people with fever and cold symptoms in the local population, particularly among schoolchildren who appear to be hard-hit. Numerous people are experiencing symptoms similar to those of COVID-19, such as runny nose, headaches, general body aches, and fever.

Many locals refer to it as COVID-19 infection.

Mr. Wang, a Chongqing resident, said that he recently lost his sense of taste and smell, a symptom similar to that of COVID-19.

Mr. Feng, also a resident, confirmed to The Epoch Times that several counties near Chongqing have cases of people coming down with similar symptoms.

“Many seniors have died recently,” Mr. Chen said, adding that many seniors showed strange physical conditions after the COVID-19 vaccine but there’s no proof to correlate them to the shot.

There’s an unusually high volume of cremations and traffic at the funeral homes. According to Mr. Chen, just a few days ago his friend’s funeral was arranged in a faraway crematorium because the nearby crematorium was overloaded.

He described a recent incident to The Epoch Times: His wife witnessed a woman in her 30s who ran a few steps to catch a bus, but she collapsed once she boarded the bus. It happened on Dec. 11.

He said, “The local news made no mention of it, even though there were several dozens of passersby at the scene along with the traffic police.”

Netizens Mock Official Data

On Dec. 12, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Chinese CDC) reported that between Nov. 1 and Nov. 30, there were 135 new severe cases and 8 deaths from COVID-19 across mainland China.

Online netizens mocked the data.

A netizen from Xinjiang with the username “Leading Wolf’s Chief” suggested the regime should “tell fewer of these solemn jokes; the current humor is already sufficient.”

A netizen from Shandong, “Seems Like Tears from Parting,” suspected the reported death cases are “too high” to believe.

Pseudonyms have been used to protect interviewees from reprisal.

Fang Xiao and Xiong Bin contributed to this report.