(Minghui.org) In the past three years, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has exhausted medical resources on COVID testing and other draconian measures in its attempt to maintain the zero-COVID policy. When the policy failed to contain the virus and sparked public anger, the CCP abruptly ended the policy on December 7 with no further plan. Infections and deaths soon soared across China, causing a shortage of fever medicine and overwhelming hospitals and crematories.
Infectious disease experts estimated that the infection rate in Beijing may have exceeded 80%. A recent survey in Sichuan Province showed 63.25% of its residents had been infected. Quzhou City of Zhejiang Province, a traffic hub that connects to Fujian, Jiangxi, and Anhui Provinces, predicted that infection would peak at the end of December 2022. So far, over half of Quzhou’s medical staff had been infected.
Three agencies in Beijing, including the Health Commission, the Civil Affairs Bureau, and the Police Department, jointly issued a document on December 12. Titled “Guidance on Handling Bodies of Coronavirus Patients,” the document stipulates that COVID patients’ bodies should be cremated no more than three hours after the family contacts the crematory. It also states that bodies must be cremated nearby, not buried or moved out of town. Bodies of out-of-town patients are not allowed to be cremated in Beijing. Funerals and memorial services are also prohibited. Minority ethnic groups must also have their bodies cremated if the cause of death is COVID, even if their traditions dictate otherwise. Foreigners who die of COVID in Beijing must also have their bodies cremated and their families may take their ashes back to their home countries.
Consequences of Totalitarian Rule
“In the past three years, the [CCP] government exhausted medical resources on nucleic acid testing, blocked manufacturing and logistics activities with lockdown, and destroyed the pharmaceutical supply chain through regulating fever medicine sales,” one netizen wrote.
The post continued, “The Chinese authorities refused to import overseas vaccines, failed to plan for a fever medicine reserve, neglected to educate the public on how to reduce infection and care for themselves in case of infection, had no earmarked funds for medical spending, and did not put in place a drug emergency plan. The government locked everything down in the summer when there was less chance for the spread of viruses. And it now opened everything up in the winter when the flu and other viruses strike. It was such a big failure from beginning to end.”
Some medical professionals are also reflecting on the problems. Mou Xiaohui, former Vice President of Changzheng Hospital in Shanghai, recently apologized on social media for misleading the public earlier. He and other health officials trusted the zero-COVID policy and did not plan for rising cases or emergency medicine shortages. Mou himself was infected, and so were a large number of doctors and nurses in the hospital. Like other military hospitals, Changzheng Hospital has been reported to be heavily involved in the forced organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners.
In major cities of China, from Beijing, Chongqing, to Shenyang and Changzhou, funeral homes were packed with corpses and the waiting list for cremation is very long. According to public information, many CCP members have recently died of COVID including government officials, scholars, and other professionals. The obituaries from Zhongshan University in Guangdong Province, for example, indicated that many employees had died in December alone, with some still at relative young ages.
Ouyang Lisi, from the Human Anatomy Department of Sun Yat-sen Medical College, died at 43 on December 19. Wang Zhiqang, an associate professor from the medical college, died at 40 on December 10. Peng Baogang, Chief Physician and Professor of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery Center from First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, died at 59 on November 30. Similar to Changzheng Hospital, First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University also participated in forced organ harvesting.
A Global Threat
North Korea, an ally of the CCP, was also alarmed by the recent surging cases in China. It has temporarily banned Chinese citizens from entry. In addition, all recent arrivals from China, including North Korean citizens, must undergo 30 days of quarantine and observation, reported VOA on December 29.
Some other countries, including the United States, India, Japan, Italy, South Korea, and Taiwan, have also imposed entry restrictions or special requirements on Chinese travelers due to Covid. The Philippines and Malaysia are also considering restrictions on travelers from China.
When Milan Malpensa Airport in Italy mandated COVID testing on December 26 for travelers from China, it found nearly half of the passengers on two flights, from Beijing and Shanghai, had been infected. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announced on December 29 that half of the samples had been sequenced, which showed the Omicron strain of the coronavirus.
Meloni and Orazio Schillaci, Italy’s Health Minister, have been urging the European Union to implement COVID testing on all travelers from China. As of December 29, the EU has yet to agree. “However, we remain vigilant and will be ready to use the emergency brake if necessary,” the European Commission said in a statement on December 29.
The UK-based health data firm Airfinity estimated 9,000 people in China were probably dying each day from COVID, nearly doubling an earlier estimate from a week ago. “Cumulative deaths in China since December 1 likely reached 100,000, with infections totaling 18.6 million, Airfinity said in a statement on Thursday. It used modeling based on data from Chinese provinces,” reported The Guardian on December 30. In addition, Airfinity expects China’s COVID infections to reach their first peak on January 13 with 3.7 million cases a day.
A joint study by researchers at the University of Macau and Harvard Medical School estimated “China could reduce the number of deaths to less than 200,000 if it implements public health measures to help slow the spread of COVID-19, increase vaccination rates and ensure adequate supplies of medicines,” reported Business Standard on December 27. Given the current situation, the same study predicted as many as one and a half million people could die from COVID-19 over the next six months.
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