Another Wave of Infections and Cover-Up in China

(Minghui.org) After the pandemic deaths slowed down in 2022, another wave started in China in late 2023. Besides misleading the public by labeling mycoplasma as the cause of the new wave pneumonia, the CCP also instructed medical professionals to avoid using COVID-19 as the cause of death. This was confirmed by a printed notice in a hospital emergency department not to mention COVID-19. “Instead, if the deceased had an underlying disease, that should be named as the main cause of death, according to the notice,” reported Reuters on January 17, 2023, in an article titled “Insight: In China, doctors say they are discouraged from citing COVID on death certificates.”

“If doctors believe that the death was caused solely by COVID-19 pneumonia, they must report to their superiors, who will arrange for two levels of ‘expert consultations’ before a COVID death is confirmed,” the report continued. “Six doctors at public hospitals across China told Reuters they had either received similar oral instructions discouraging them from attributing deaths to COVID or were aware that their hospitals had such policies.”

Underreported Cases

With COVID-19 deaths continuing to surge, the CCP was unable to restrict the information totally, and it began to report isolated cases. The China CDC reported on December 12, 2023, that China had 135 severe cases of COVID-19 and 8 deaths related to the disease. In the meantime, the Chinese authorities rolled out numerous new COVID-19 vaccines and urged citizens to get them, although their efficacy has yet to be confirmed. Previous vaccines from China were well known for their adverse side effects. 

The situation in China also raised concerns among medical professionals outside China. “Reports of a surge in pneumonia-like illness primarily affecting children in northern China have captured our attention. The last time we heard about a mysterious respiratory outbreak leading to overcrowding in hospitals was the beginning of the COVID pandemic, so it’s not entirely surprising this has caused some alarm,” wrote C Raina MacIntyre and other epidemiologists in The Conversation on November 26, 2023, in an article titled “How worried should we be about the pneumonia outbreak in China?”

The article also mentioned a post on X (formerly Twitter) from Eric Feigl-Ding, epidemiologist and Chief of the COVID Task Force at the New England Complex Systems Institute. “I’m hearing many insiders tell me that Chinese doctors are told by govt authorities to not report any numbers and not test patients & not report any tests. This sounds eerily familiar,” wrote Feigl-Ding on X along with a video footage showing increasing cases at Beijing Children’s hospital.

Consistent with this, many social media posts have recently reported a large number of deaths of celebrities, such as movie stars. Some of them only in their 40s and even 30s have died suddenly. 

The CCP does not publicize real COVID-19 statistics. But government agencies usually publish obituaries following the deaths of key officials, including experts, professors, police officers, and military officers. The numbers were alarming in 2023. Since the second half of 2023, at least 26 officials at the rank of corps commander or higher, all of them CCP members, have died of illness. They include Yu Zhenwu (admiral and former commander of the Air Force), Wen Ji (former director of the Artillery Department of the General Staff), Wang Tongzhuo (former deputy political commissar and secretary of the Discipline Inspection Commission of the Guangzhou Military Region), Shen Binyi (former deputy commander of the Navy), Ling Yongshun (academician of the Academy of Engineering and professor of the National University of Defense Technology), and others. 

In 2023 alone, at least 66 senior officials at provincial and ministerial level died. Among them, 58 (or 87.9%) were CCP members. Actually, those who were not CCP members followed the Party line closely. In October and November, at least 12 academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering passed away. Some young police officers, almost all of them CCP members, also died of illness. 

It appears that the pandemic in China is really not over. Rather, the severity and deaths have been under-reported by CCP officials. 

Cause of the Catastrophe

Why does this deadly infectious disease continue to ravage China? Traditional Chinese culture might offer some hints. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty once asked renowned scholar Dong Zhongshu what caused disasters. Dong replied that, when a nation lost its moral values, the divine would send disasters as a warning. If the situation continued and the mistakes remained uncorrected, all kinds of chaos would ensue until the dynasty collapsed. This was repeated in many dynasties, especially when moral values were ignored and laws were abused to mistreat the innocent.

This is exactly what is happening in today’s China. A recent Foreign Policy magazine reported the CCP has been targeting dissidents through the Public Security Ministry and high-tech companies through real-time tracking and data sharing. The dissidents include Falun Gong practitioners, journalists, and those who appealed against official mistreatment.

Human Rights Watch found in 2017 that the police do not need any kind of court order to conduct surveillance. In addition, the police department is not required to report surveillance activities to any other government agency or to publicly disclose this information.

This is especially the case for Falun Gong practitioners, who have been targeted by the CCP since July 1999 for their belief in the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. According to reports from Minghui.org, officials have used big data and cloud technologies to monitor, track, and restrict the freedom of practitioners. 

More specifically, electronic global positioning and tracking devices were installed in cars, bicycles, cell phones, and even in the pockets of Falun Gong practitioners. Other measures include installing surveillance cameras near practitioners’ homes, collecting personal data (on faces, fingerprints, gaits, and voices), denying them passports, and banning them from leaving China. Practitioners are harassed, followed, imprisoned, captured, tortured, and even killed at will for their organs.

According to the summary of “A Quarter Century of Persecution, Over 5,000 Confirmed Deaths of Falun Gong Practitioners,” it has been confirmed that at least 5,010 Falun Gong practitioners have lost their lives due to suppression by the CCP. 

“With Falun Gong being labeled as the top ‘state enemy’ by the CCP, government officials at every level across the country were mobilized to carry out the persecution per the former CCP chairman Jiang Zemin’s three policies, ‘defame their [Falun Gong practitioners] reputation, bankrupt them financially, and destroy them physically,’” wrote the report. “As a result of the extreme eradication policy, deaths of Falun Gong practitioners were reported in every one of the 22 provinces, 4 municipalities and 5 autonomous regions in China.”

The top ten provinces (or provincial cities) where Falun Gong practitioners died are: Heilongjiang Province (646), Liaoning Province (629), Hebei Province (560), Jilin Province (530), Shandong Province (464), Sichuan Province (320), Hubei Province (233), Henan Province (190), Hunan Province (174), and Beijing City (147).

The CCP’s core values of hatred, brutality, and lies contradict traditional values such as Falun Gong’s teachings. As a result, Falun Gong practitioners from all walks of life, including government officials, scholars, workers, and farmers, were targeted for their faith. Although Jiang died in November 2022, the persecution has nonetheless continued. In 2023, the deaths of 209 practitioners and sentencing of 1,190 Falun Gong practitioners were reported, as well as the arrests of 3,629 practitioners and 2,885 harassment incidents. 

Summary

A Minghui report in 2021, “Coronavirus Cases Increased at Places Where Falun Gong Is Persecuted the Worst,” found a high correlation between the severity of the persecution and deaths due to the pandemic. According to the article: “The same study also reported that the three Northeastern provinces (Heilongjiang, Liaoning, Jilin), as well as Hebei, Shandong, and Sichuan, were also associated with the highest number of persecution cases. According to information received by Minghui.org, at least 499 Falun Gong practitioners in Jilin Province alone have died as a result of the persecution of their faith over the past two decades. During the coronavirus pandemic, it is these provinces that had the worst situation compared to other places in China. This could be a hint that wherever the persecution of innocent Falun Gong practitioners runs rampant, there may be dire consequences such as a pandemic or other misfortunes.”

Back to Dong’s response mentioned above, the tragedies in China could be related to brutality of the CCP. Therefore, anyone who participates in the unlawful suppression or blindly follows the CCP might be in danger. 

Mr. Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Dafa, wrote in March 2020 when the pandemic first started, “But a pandemic like the current Chinese Communist Virus (or “Wuhan Virus”) comes with a purpose behind it, and it has targets. It is here to weed out members of the Party and those who have sided with it.” (“Stay Rational”)

In that same article, Mr. Li also wrote, “People should distance themselves from the CCP and stop siding with the Party. Behind it is the red Devil, while outwardly it looks and acts like a thug who stops at no evil. So now that the divine is starting to eradicate it, all who still stand by it shall perish.” “What people should do, instead, is to repent to the divine with all due sincerity, admit to their faults, and pray for a chance to change their ways. That is the way to go, and that is the magic cure.”

Despite the ongoing persecution, Falun Gong practitioners have worked hard over the past 24 years to tell people how the practice has benefited people, how the CCP has been harming people in its political campaigns, and how to remain safe by cherishing virtue while rejecting the CCP. We sincerely hope more people will make the right choice and remain safe.