BEIJING - China reported its first Covid-19-related deaths in weeks on Monday amid rising doubts over the official count.

There are questions about whether it is capturing the full toll of a disease that is ripping through cities after the government relaxed strict anti-virus controls.

Monday’s two deaths were the first to be reported by the National Health Commission (NHC) since Dec 3, days before Beijing announced that it was lifting curbs which had largely kept the virus in check for three years but triggered widespread protests last month.

On Saturday, however, Reuters journalists witnessed hearses lined up outside a designated Covid-19 crematorium in Beijing and workers in hazmat suits carrying the dead inside the facility.

Reuters could not immediately establish if the deaths were due to Covid-19.

Other reports said police and security guards were stationed outside a Beijing crematorium said to handle Covid-19 fatalities.

Guards pushed journalists to the back of the Beijing Dongjiao Funeral Parlour’s parking lot on Monday, as a line of about a dozen black mini-vans entered the site on Beijing’s eastern outskirts, used to prepare and process bodies for cremation. The vans appeared to be dropping off bodies and were surrounded at one point by what seemed to be mourners or relatives. 

The crematorium has drawn scrutiny after workers told foreign media including the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal that they were overwhelmed with bodies since China scrapped most Covid-19 restrictions and Beijing experienced a surge in cases.

A hashtag on the two latest reported Covid-19 deaths quickly became the top trending topic on China’s Twitter-like Weibo platform on Monday morning.

“What is the point of incomplete statistics?“ asked one user. “Isn’t this cheating the public?,” wrote another.

The NHC did not immediately respond to questions from Reuters on the accuracy of its data.

Officially China has recorded just 5,237 Covid-related deaths during the pandemic, including the latest two fatalities.

It is a tiny fraction of its population of 1.4 billion people and very low by global standards.

Health experts said China may pay a price for taking such stringent measures to shield a population that now lacks natural immunity to Covid-19 and has low vaccination rates among the elderly.

Some fear China’s Covid-19 death toll could rise above 1.5 million in the coming months.

Chinese news outlet Caixin on Friday reported that two state media journalists had died after contracting Covid-19, and then on Saturday that a 23-year-old medical student had also died.

It is not immediately clear which, if any, of these deaths were included in official death tolls.

“The (official) number is clearly an undercount of Covid deaths,” said Mr Yanzhong Huang, a global health specialist at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), a US think-tank.

That “may reflect the lack of state ability to effectively track and monitor the disease situation on the ground after the collapse of the mass PCR testing regime, but it may also be driven by efforts to avoid mass panic over the surge of Covid deaths,” he said.

The NHC reported 1,995 symptomatic infections for Dec 18, compared with 2,097 a day earlier.

But infection rates have also become an unreliable guide. That is because far less mandatory PCR testing is being conducted following the recent easing of the zero-Covid-19 policy.

The NHC stopped reporting asymptomatic cases last week citing the testing drop.

China’s stocks fell and the yuan eased against the dollar on Monday, as investors grew concerned that surging Covid-19 cases would further weigh on the world’s second largest economy despite pledges of government support.

The virus is also sweeping through trading floors in Beijing and spreading fast in the financial hub of Shanghai, with illness and absence thinning already light trade and forcing regulators to cancel a weekly meeting vetting public share sales.

Japanese chipmaker Renesas Electronics Corp said on Monday it has suspended work at its Beijing plant due to Covid-19 infections.

Spreading fast

China’s chief epidemiologist Wu Zunyou on Saturday said the country was in the throes of the first of three Covid-19 waves expected this winter, which is more in line with what people said they are experiencing on the ground.

“I’d say 60 to 70 per cent of my colleagues are infected right now,” said Liu, a 37-year-old canteen worker in Beijing, who asked to be identified by his surname.

While top officials have been downplaying the threat posed by the new Omicron strain of the virus, they are concerned about the elderly, who have been reluctant to get vaccinated.

Officially, China’s vaccination rate is above 90 per cent.

But the rate for adults who have received booster doses of the vaccine drops to 57.9 per cent, and to 42.3 per cent for people aged 80 and above, according to government data.

In the Shijingshan district of Beijing, medical workers have been going door-to-door offering to vaccinate elderly residents in their homes, China’s Xinhua news agency reported on Sunday.

But it is not just the elderly who are wary of vaccines.

“I don’t trust it,” said Candice, a 28-year-old headhunter in Shenzhen, citing stories from friends about health impacts and health warnings on social media. She gave only her first name.

Vaccines developed overseas are not available in China to the public, which has relied on inactivated shots by local manufacturers.

While China’s medical community in general does not doubt the safety of China’s vaccines, some say questions remain over their efficacy compared to foreign-made mRNA counterparts. REUTERS, BLOOMBERG