China’s Covid Death Reports Spread as Doubts Grow About Official Virus Data
- Social media posts signal deaths higher than official count
- China has kept a tight grip on information throughout pandemic
China appears to be seeing an increase in Covid deaths across a swath of the country that aren’t being reported in government figures, according to social media posts, adding to speculation that officials are masking the full impact of their abrupt shift away from Covid Zero.
People from Hebei in the north to Guangdong in the south have flocked to China’s Twitter-style Weibo platform to post about longer-than-normal queues at funeral homes, and crematoriums handling a growing number of bodies. The reports indicate the wave of fatalities that, until now, has been centered in the capital of Beijing — which has officially had seven deaths in recent days despite an explosion in infections — is quietly rippling through less prominent parts of the country.