China's first nationwide surge of COVID-19 infections may have passed its peak, with fatalities from the virus likely to follow in the coming days, according to British health analytics firm Airfinity.
The country's top health body, the National Health Commission (NHC), said Saturday that nearly 60,000 COVID-related deaths were recorded in hospitals since December.
Mortality statistics outside of medical facilities remained unclear, but Airfinity estimated China was seeing 23,021 daily deaths as of Monday, with infections having peaked on January 13.
COVID fatalities were expected to peak 10 days later at approximately 25,000 a day, the company said, for a projected total of 584,000 since December 1.
Airfinity predicted a death toll reaching 1.7 million by the end of April in a seemingly deadlier surge than the U.S.'s winter wave two Januaries ago, before vaccines were widely available.
Leaders in Beijing spent just one month dismantling previously strict anti-virus controls after December 7. The years-long policy remained largely airtight until highly transmissible Omicron subvariants proved the approach to be unsustainable, with COVID ripping through major urban centers shortly after.
Over the weekend, Jiao Yahui, director of the Bureau of Medical Administration at China's NHC, said Chinese hospitals reported 59,938 COVID-related deaths between December 8 and January 12.
China had previously reported five or fewer deaths a day.
They included 5,503 patients who died of COVID-induced respiratory failure and a further 54,435 who died with a combination of other illnesses, including heart disease and cancer, which China doesn't classify as COVID deaths. It meant the country's official COVID fatalities since late 2019 had more than doubled.
The World Health Organization said China's definition for counting COVID deaths—requiring proof of pneumonia or respiratory failure—was too narrow and contributing to significant underreporting.
A senior Chinese health official last week argued it wasn't necessary to look into the cause of each death.
China's nationwide outbreak, which the WHO said was difficult to track without real-time geographical data, was hitting the elderly population particularly hard, Jiao's report confirmed.
More than 90 percent of China's 1.4 billion people had been inoculated as of late November, but tens of millions of over-60s remained unboosted or unvaccinated, the official numbers showed.
Among those who died of COVID-related symptoms in the past month, the average age was 80.3 years, said Jiao. Over 90 percent were over 65, and 56.5 percent were over 80, she said. Beijing's decision to reopen in winter appeared to play a role.
The number of daily hospital visits peaked at 2.9 million on December 23 and had fallen 83 percent to 477,000 by January 12, Jiao said, noting the "the national emergency peak has passed."
In a statement on its website, the WHO welcomed China's disclosure of further data. The U.N. health agency has spent the past weeks appealing for more transparency from Beijing in order to provide accurate risk assessments to concerned capitals, which have irked Beijing by mandating negative PCR tests on flights from China as a travel requirement.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO's director-general, also spoke with Ma Xiaowei, China's NHC head, the statement said.
"WHO requested that this type of detailed information continue to be shared with us and the public," the agency said.
"The reported data indicate a decline in case numbers, hospitalizations, and those requiring critical care. WHO has requested a more detailed breakdown of data by province over time."
COVID may have peaked in China's urban areas, but the WHO has warned the virus could quickly spread to the country's vast countryside as hundreds of millions travel home for the Lunar New Year break, which officially starts on January 21.
In China's rural hinterland, medical facilities are underresourced and understaffed, leaving open the possibility of a surge in cases and deaths that would likely also go undercounted.
Its health officials last week said the true pandemic death toll could eventually be calculated by comparing excesses deaths.
Do you have a tip on a world news story that Newsweek should be covering? Do you have a question about China? Let us know via worldnews@newsweek.com.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
John Feng is Newsweek's contributing editor for Asia based in Taichung, Taiwan. His focus is on East Asian politics. He ... Read more
