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China’s Hospital Covid Death Data Just a Tenth of Total Toll

  • Officials reported 59,938 deaths in outbreak’s first 35 days
  • Deaths appear much lower than in other Covid Zero countries
Covid-19 patients at a hospital in Tianjin, China.

Covid-19 patients at a hospital in Tianjin, China.

Photographer: Noel Celis/AFP/Getty Images
By
Bloomberg News

The nearly 60,000 Covid-related deaths China reported for the first five weeks of its current outbreak, the largest the world has ever seen, may underestimate the true toll by hundreds of thousands of fatalities, experts said.

China’s abrupt pivot from Covid Zero in early December unleashed a surge of omicron infections and led to 59,938 virus-related deaths in the nation’s hospitals through Jan. 12, the National Health Commission disclosed this weekend.