Updates on China’s Covid Situation (December 25, 2022)

(Minghui.org) Since the Chinese Communist Party announced the end of its zero-Covid policy and lifted all restrictions on December 5, positive cases have been surging in many places, including Beijing, Shijiazhuang (in Hebei Province), and Wuhan (in Hubei Province).

The CCP’s abrupt rollback of the zero-Covid policy without any exit plan has strained the medical system, with hospitals being overwhelmed with patients and pharmacies running out of fever and cold medicines.

A netizen “Wang Xiaoguai in Beijing” posted her story on December 23. She took her feverish child to Hemujia Hospital in Beijing and paid a nearly 2,000 yuan registration fee. Her child’s fever remained high after three hours and inpatient care was needed. A nurse told her, “15,000 yuan per night for room and board; treatment fees will be billed separately.” Wang didn’t understand why the fees were so high. Besides her child, there were more than 300 other children waiting to be treated there.

Another woman shared the story of a friend, Hao (alias), in Beijing. Hao had an elderly family member who died recently. He contacted all the crematoriums in Beijing and was told that he had to wait one week. He then used his connections to contact a crematorium more than 60 miles away, but the crematorium charged 38,000 yuan. He felt it was overpriced and the crematorium said, “Do you want to take the offer or not? We still have many people on the waiting list.”

Hao had no choice but to agree to the price. The crematorium workers tossed his family member’s body into their vehicle and drove away. He and his family followed to the crematorium, where they saw several bodies in each refrigerator and more bodies on the ground. The crematorium then announced that they could only cremate 40 bodies that day. Hao was 43rd in line. He used the same connection to move up to 36th place after paying 500 yuan. His place dropped to the 38th after some unexpected things happened to people ahead of him.

Hao’s family member’s body was finally cremated that night. He sighed, “We better protect ourselves well. We can’t even afford to die nowadays.”

According to insiders, Mudanjiang City First Funeral Home in Heilongjiang Province received more than 50 bodies per day this past week. It has now stopped accepting new clients. The locals had to use Mudanjiang City Second Funeral Home and nearby Ningan County Funeral Home. Both places also had 10-20 bodies to cremate every day.

Wu Zunyou, the chief epidemiologist of China’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), projected a 10-30% infection rate and a fatality rate of 1.09-0.16% this winter in China. Based on his estimates, about 140-420 million people would be infected, and 126,000-672,000 people would die. Wu also praised the CCP’s new 10-Covid-rules issued on December 7 for being just in time to deal with the new development of the Covid situation. He further predicted three waves, with the first wave between mid-December to mid-January, the second wave from mid-January to mid-February, and the third wave from mid-February to mid-March.

Many government agencies in various places in Hubei Province, including Jingzhou, Xiaotao, Qianjiang, and Wuhan, have shut down or reduced services since mid-December. Many court hearings were postponed, and no one answered the phone at the Hubei Province Superior Court.

Mr. Liu, a resident in Wuhan, told Radio Free Asia that it was the busiest time for hospitals. He said, “Doctors tested positive too. How strange that almost everyone in Wuhan got infected as soon as Covid tests were no longer required. The mortality rate is a bit lower than that in 2020 when the pandemic first broke out, but crematoriums are still overwhelmed. Most of the dead are elderly and those with underlying diseases.”

Mr. Guo, a resident in Nanming District, Guiyang City, Guizhou Province, was also interviewed by Radio Free Asia. He said the Covid situation in his region was also very bad, and people couldn’t get their hands on cold and fever medicines. Some people who tested negative before going to the hospital were infected after they left the hospital. He said he knew several people who were feverish.

Many renowned scholars and household names have recently died, one after another.

Jiang Zhiqiang, associate professor of Sunyat-Sen University School of Medicine, died in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province on December 10. He was 40 years old.

Wang Ruoji, a famed soccer player, died on December 12. He was 37.

Wang Delu, director of Changcheng Strategy Research Institute in Beijing, died on December 14. He was 66.

Chu Lanlan, renowned Peking Opera Performing Artist, died on December 18. She was 39.

Dong Yuming, pharmacy professor of Lanzhou University in Gansu Province, died on December 19. He was 51.

Wu Guanying, professor of Academy of Arts & Design at Tsinghua University, died on December 20. He was 67.

Zhou Tao, a faculty member at Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology, died on December 20. He was 59.

Cao Laiying, renowned Ob/Gyn doctor, died in Wuhan on December 20. She was 69.

Zhang Guocheng, academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, died in Beijing on December 21.

Cao Fengqi, emeritus professor of Guanghua School of Management, Peking University, died in Beijing on December 21. He was 77.

Liu Tong, professor of Shanghai Jiaotong University and expert in Chinese Communist Party history, died on December 21. He was 71.

Jiang Tongsan, former director of Quantitative Economics Institute at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, died on December 22. He was 74.

A man who declined to reveal his name for safety reason told an Epoch Times reporter on December 23 that he lost five family members to the virus in ten days. Their bodies are still waiting to be cremated. His 65-year-old father-in-law died on December 13; his 62-year-old father and his wife’s uncle both died on December 19; his cousin’s grandma died on December 21; his 85-year-old paternal grandma died on December 22.

His father-in-law started coughing and struggled to breath while having breakfast. He died moments later.

His paternal grandmother tested positive, and her lungs were infected. She received emergency care and was then moved to a regular ward, where she died. They saw many other patients die in the hospital.

This man said all five deceased family members were inoculated, but apparently the China-made vaccines failed to protect them. He said he agreed to be interviewed because he was furious and wanted the world to know how ineffective the vaccines were.

The overwhelmed crematoriums in Beijing have drawn attention from multiple news media outside of China. According to Beijing residents who agreed to be interviewed by those media outlets, people needed to queue for days to get their loved ones’ bodies cremated; some bodies had to be placed in the same wards as living patients; many crematoriums had stopped receiving bodies, and many families had to turn to out-of-town crematoriums.

Beijing Youth Daily reported that the crematorium in Tongzhou District, Beijing had to handle 140-150 bodies per day, much more than the typical workload of 40 bodies.

China’s National Health Commission reported five Covid deaths on December 20, all in Beijing. The agency now only counts deaths from pneumonia or respiratory failure as officially reported Covid deaths, while many other countries, such as the United States, also include deaths as a result of other Covid-triggered conditions.

As pharmacies in China run out of fever and cold medicines, many people ask their relatives or friends who live outside of China to purchase medicines for them in their respective countries. This is similar to what happened in 2008, when many parents in China were worried about the contaminated formula and asked others to get the product from other countries.

As of now, Germany and France have imposed restrictions on how much fever or cold medications each customer can purchase, in order to prevent supply shortages in their own countries.

Both the U.S. and Germany have offered to help with China’s new wave of Covid cases, but the CCP has turned them down. Gong Yujian, a dissident who lives in Taiwan, said during an interview with Radio Free Asia, “Declining the offer for help only shows that the CCP has no regard for human life. It treats people like ants. The CCP’s mentality of not airing dirty laundry is on full display. China’s medical system has totally collapsed from what I know. China is experiencing a huge humanitarian disaster.”

He said that upon learning of the mass infections and high morality rate of elderly people, he talked to his relatives and friends in China and found that such a situation was unfolding in both metropolises and smaller towns. He concluded, “It’s a tragedy unfolding across China.”

Lin Zhibo, former director of the Sichuan Province Branch of People’s Daily, posted on December 21, “Crowds gathered to watch FIFA World Cup Qatar, maskless but not infected; Argentina won and the whole nation celebrated maskless, no infections; Russia is busy invading Ukraine, no Covid testing, no masks, no infections; China is strange – the whole nation got infected as soon as restrictions were lifted. Why so many infections all of a sudden? New variant?”

The post was deleted hours later.

The Washington Post published an article titled, “China’s new covid nightmare may become a global catastrophe.” The article warned that the latest Covid development in China may mirror the initial outbreak in Wuhan which eventually spread to the rest of the world.

The South Korean Agency for Disease Control and Prevention announced on December 21 that it has listed China as a “key country for quarantine and inspection” since December 16, imposing stricter entry screening of passengers from China. India also started randomly screening passengers going through customs.