China Confirms Change to Covid Death Definition as Doubts on Data Grow
- Death by respiratory failure is a Covid fatality: top doctor
- Social media posts signal true toll exceeds official figures
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China confirmed it’s narrowed how it defines a Covid death, adding weight to speculation that its strikingly low official tally is hiding the true picture of the chaos unleashed by this month’s abrupt pandemic pivot.
The country will only count people who tested positive for Covid and died of respiratory failure as official virus deaths, Wang Guiqiang, a top infectious disease doctor, told reporters at a National Health Commission briefing in Beijing on Tuesday. People deemed to have died due to another disease or an event like a heart attack won’t be classified as a virus death, even if they were sick with Covid at the time, he said.