US Study: 2M Excess Deaths in China After 'Zero-COVID' End

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Facts

  • A study from Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center suggests that the sudden end of China's stringent zero-COVID policies may have led to nearly 2M excess deaths, in research published Thursday in JAMA Network Open.1
  • The researchers estimate that there were 1.87M excess deaths among all causes in people 30 and over between December 2022 and January and were observed in every mainland Chinese province except Tibet. This number is higher than the 60K COVID deaths reported by China during that period.2
  • After zero-COVID measures were lifted in December after public protests, China stopped tracking the virus precisely. Zero-COVID entailed strict lockdowns, mass testing, and other regulations to stop the spread.3
  • The research team culled data from university employee obituaries and search trends for topics such as cremation and burial on Baidu, a Chinese search engine. Excess mortality refers to comparing death rates among the same groups at different periods.4
  • The senior author of the paper argues that China's zero-COVID policies lowered natural immunity to the virus which, coupled with a sub-par vaccination campaign, had a 'devastating impact' once lockdowns were lifted.5
  • Most experts contend that official COVID death numbers in most countries are undercounted, especially in China. The countries with the top three most official COVID deaths are the US, Brazil, and India; by excess death estimates, the top three are India, Russia, and the US.4

Sources: 1Reuters, 2NBC, 3Independent, 4Bloomberg and 5The telegraph.

Narratives

  • Anti-China narrative, as provided by Washington Post. China, the epicenter of the COVID pandemic, has not been transparent with the global community. The PRC's official death numbers were nonsensical from the get-go, and the downplaying of the death toll put other countries at risk. These numbers recognize the unacknowledged victims of China's authoritarian handling of the COVID pandemic and the zero-COVID rollback which caused untold suffering.
  • Pro-China narrative, as provided by Global times. This study is anti-PRC slander, with a US-funded research institute making wild speculations about excess mortality. The truth is that China led the world in fighting COVID, and unlike Western nations did not deny its existence or resort to xenophobic conspiracies about its origin. China instituted stringent guidelines to keep the population safe — in spite of what this unfounded speculation might insinuate.