China’s Covid Zero Exit Led to 1.9 Million Deaths in Two Months, Study Finds
- Sudden Covid infection introduction had ‘devastating’ impact
- Researchers used company obituaries, Baidu search results
Patients are cared for by relatives and medical staff in Shanghai in January 2023.
Photographer: Kevin Frayer/Getty ImagesChina’s unexpected decision to end its strict Covid Zero policy in December 2022 led to nearly 1.9 million excess deaths in just two months, according to one of the first independent studies to estimate the virus’s devastation as it rampaged across the vast country.
The shocking figure — even more so considering fewer than 7 million deaths worldwide have been formally attributed to Covid — applies only to adults over the age of 30 who died between December 2022 and January 2023, according to the paper published in the journal JAMA Network Open. The Chinese government had previously disclosed about 60,000 Covid-related deaths in health facilities from early December to the middle of January.