COVID-19: Deaths of More and More Famous Chinese Alarms the Population

In China, the death of more and more famous people is being announced, prompting residents to question the previous data on mortality from COVID-19, the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, writes the BBC.

At the beginning of the week, Bloomberg wrote about the paralysis of the system in China due to the coronavirus, whose latest wave, according to local authorities, leads to hundreds of thousands (or even a million) infected per day in some provinces. Last month, the agency reported 37 million infections in one day at the national level.

More and more data indicate that hospitals and crematoriums are overcrowded. "In Shanghai, more than 200 taxi drivers are driving ambulances to meet the demand for emergency services," Reuters reported, citing the local Shanghai Morning Post.

China, meanwhile, stopped publishing data on cases and deaths, and only 24 deaths have been announced since December; of them on Thursday - only one. In total, since the beginning of the pandemic, their official number is only 5,264 people.

The World Health Organization (WHO), which in the course of the pandemic has been accused of being influenced by China (including by former US President Donald Trump), on Wednesday questioned the reliability of Beijing's statistics.

The sharp U-turn by Chinese authorities, who after a wave of demonstrations abandoned "zero COVID", lifted travel restrictions and other heavy-handed measures, could face a new clash with the West after the United States and a number of European countries began demanding tests of passengers arriving from China. A similar step is being introduced at the European level. Yesterday, Greece, Germany and Sweden joined the list of requiring tests from travelers from China.