Nearly 60,000 people have died of Covid in China in past five weeks

Almost 60,000 people have died of Covid in Chinese hospitals since early December when the country relaxed its strict lockdown restrictions, authorities have announced.

A major wave of the virus has gripped the country after President Xi Jinping abruptly lifted zero-Covid policy restrictions last month. It is estimated that some major cities have experienced infection rates of between 70% and 90% of their populations since then.

Reports of deaths on social media and long queues at morgues and crematoriums have suggested a high death toll, but until Saturday authorities had only officially recorded a few dozen Covid-19 fatalities.

The shortfall in reported numbers was due to stringent definitions of how a death is attributed to Covid in China. Only people who died of respiratory failure were counted. The World Health Organization last week criticised the new definition as too narrow and warned that it was an under-representation of the true impact of the outbreak. But Chinese authorities responded that it was not necessary to attribute every death to Covid.

However, Jiao Yahui, the head of the Bureau of Medical Administration, on Saturday announced there had in fact been 59,938 Covid deaths between 8 December and 12 January. This figure included about 5,500 individuals who died of respiratory failure, while the rest also had underlying health conditions. The average age of those who died was 80, Jiao said, with 90.1% aged 65 and above.

Several countries have introduced travel restrictions or mandatory testing on incoming people from China, prompting some retaliatory measures from Beijing against Japan and South Korea.

The lifting of travel restrictions has also led to a jump in services offering trips to Hong Kong and Macau, where the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine is free to residents. Clinics in Thailand and Singapore have also reported increased interest from Chinese travellers.