the authorities recognize 60,000 deaths linked to Covid-19 between December and January, after the lifting of health restrictions

For the first time since the lifting of restrictions linked to the zero Covid policy in China, the country’s health authorities released, on Saturday January 14, a report on the number of deaths linked to the disease on their territory. Between December 8, 2022 and January 12, 2023, 59,938 people died from the epidemic, either directly from respiratory failure associated with Covid-19 (for 5,503 of them), or from Covid-19 contracted in parallel with other pathologies (54,435).

The information was released by Jiao Yahui on behalf of the National Health Commission, and does not take into account deaths recorded outside medical facilities. Xi Jinping had decided to end the zero Covid policy in the country in early December, against a backdrop of social protests after major health restrictions in several regions of the country.