Alwaght- China reported on Saturday nearly 60,000 deaths related to the coronavirus since Beijing decided to move away from its zero-Covid policy in early December.
The lifting of many restrictions on December 7 led to a surge of infections among the east Asian country's 1.4 billion people, with 59,938 total hospital deaths related to the virus reported from December 8 to January 12 -- 5,503 from respiratory failure and 54,435 from other ailments exacerbated by Covid.
Complaints had mounted after China decided to stop reporting on Covid infections and deaths in early December when the restrictions were eased, including from the World Health Organization and governments around the world as cases spiked into December at the same time that many Chinese nationals were booking flights abroad after Beijing said it would scrap mandatory Covid quarantine for overseas arrivals from January 8.
The new report more than doubles China's official death toll from Covid from 5,272 on January 8 to 10,775.
Jiao Yahui, an official from the National Health Commission, told reporters on Saturday that "the number of fever clinic visitors is generally in a declining trend after peaking, both in cities and rural areas." Jiao also said that the number of patients needing emergency care was on a downward trend and that the ratio of patients testing positive for Covid was decreasing as well.
