China: The health authorities of China have reported that the COVID wave is past its peak, with a rapid decline in both severe cases and deaths in hospitals.

According to China’s Center for Disease Control (CDC), the number of critically ill patients in hospitals peaked in the early week of January 2023, then rapidly declined by more than 70 percent. The number of deaths also reached its highest level that week.

The CDC noted that the number of visits to fever clinics peaked at 2.867 million on December 23 before falling 96.2 percent to 110,000 on January 23. The report further added that a similar decline was observed in visits to rural clinics, with peaks around the same date.

The data published by the CDC was based primarily on hospital in-patients, giving some insight into the intensity of the outbreak, but external health experts and observers have warned that it only shows one part of the true toll.

Prof. Chi Chun-huei, director of the Center for Global Health at Oregon University, remarked that “local officials were incentivized, via punishments and rewards, to under-report infection figures during the zero-COVID policy. Now that policy was gone, they were incentivized to exaggerate infection rates and underreport deaths.”

“Most international experts know this very well. China’s statistics are very unreliable,” Prof. Chun-hei said.

With the end of the “zero-COVID” policy, China dropped travel restrictions, mass testing, mandatory quarantine, and other measures. Data collection systems quickly fell far behind reality, with fewer than 60 deaths officially recorded in the first few weeks until authorities updated the way deaths are attributed.

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