Statistics of the COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China explained

See main article: COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China.

This article presents official statistics gathered during the COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China.

The case count in mainland China only includes symptomatic cases. It excludes patients who test positive but do not have symptoms, of which there were 889 as of 11 February 2020.[1] Asymptomatic infections are reported separately.[2] It is also reported that there were more than 43,000 by the end of February 2020.[3] [4] [5] On 17 April, following the Wuhan government's issuance of a report on accounting for COVID-19 deaths that occurred at home that went previously unreported, as well as the subtraction of deaths that were previously double-counted by different hospitals, the NHC retrospectively revised their cumulative totals dating to 16 April, adding 325 cumulative cases and 1,290 deaths.[6]

Around March 2020, there was speculation that China's COVID numbers were deliberately inaccurate, but as of 2021, China's COVID elimination strategy was considered to have been successful and its statistics were considered to be accurate.[7] [8] [9]

By December 2022, the Chinese central government had changed its definition of reported death statistics to only include cases in which COVID-19 directly caused respiratory failure,[10] which led to skepticism by health experts of the government's total death count.[11] [12] The same month, the municipal health chief of Qingdao reported "between 490,000 and 530,000" new COVID-19 cases per day.[13]

China was part of a small group of countries such as Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore that pursued a zero-COVID strategy. The Chinese government's strategy involved extensive testing, mask wearing, temperature checks, ventilation, contact tracing, quarantines, isolation of infected people, and heavy restrictions in response to local outbreaks.

On December 25, 2022, the Chinese government's National Health Commission announced that it would no longer publish daily COVID-19 data.[14] In January 2023, the World Health Organization stated, "We believe that the current numbers being published from China under-represent the true impact of the disease in terms of hospital admissions, in terms of ICU admissions, and particularly in terms of deaths."[15]

Timeline

Charts

2020 cumulative and daily cases graph

Data is from the Chinese National Health Commission.

Recoveries per day

Notes and References

  1. n.d.. zh:新型冠状病毒肺炎流行病学特征分析. http://chinaepi.icdc.cn/zhlxbx/ch/reader/pdf.aspx?file_no=004. zh. 41. 2. 145–151. zh:中华流行病学杂志.
  2. News: Live news from March 29: Russia says it will ease military activities in Kyiv, EU states expel Russian diplomats . 7 April 2022 . Financial Times . 29 March 2022 . Chinese official data counts "asymptomatic" cases, when an individual tests positive for the virus, separately from "confirmed" cases, where infected individuals have their symptoms verified through medical observation..
  3. News: 24 March 2020. Coronavirus Live Updates: Olympics Postponed; New York City Braces for a Deluge of Patients. The New York Times. 24 March 2020.
  4. News: 22 March 2020. A third of virus cases may be 'silent carriers', classified data suggests. South China Morning Post. 24 March 2020.
  5. News: Kuo. Lily. 23 March 2020. Life after lockdown: has China really beaten coronavirus?. The Guardian. 24 March 2020.
  6. Web site: 17 April 2020. 湖北省武汉市新冠肺炎疫情数据订正情况. Revision of the data of the new coronary pneumonia epidemic situation in Wuhan City, Hubei Province. 2 June 2020. National Health Commission. zh-cn.
  7. Web site: Wallace. Jeremy. Numbers Aren't Reality, but You Can't Govern Without Them. 2021-03-28. Foreign Policy. 11 December 2020 . en-US.
  8. Au. Lavender. 2020-11-19. How China crushed coronavirus. en-GB. Wired UK. 2021-03-28. 1357-0978.
  9. News: Myers. Steven Lee. Bradsher. Keith. Wee. Sui-Lee. Buckley. Chris. 2021-02-05. Power, Patriotism and 1.4 Billion People: How China Beat the Virus and Roared Back. en-US. The New York Times. 2021-03-28. 0362-4331.
  10. News: Yu . Verna . 20 December 2022 . China changes definition of Covid deaths as cases surge . . 22 December 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20221222175121/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/21/china-covid-infection-surge-puts-end-of-global-emergency-in-doubt-who . 22 December 2022.
  11. News: Bradsher . Keith . Chien . Amy Chang . Dong . Joy . 2022-12-23 . As Cases Explode, China's Low Covid Death Toll Convinces No One . en-US . . 2022-12-23 . 0362-4331.
  12. News: 20 December 2022 . China's low covid death count is being criticized as implausible . . 23 December 2022.
  13. News: 24 December 2022 . Chinese city seeing half a million Covid cases a day – local health chief . . . 24 December 2022.
  14. News: Griffiths . Robbie . 2022-12-25 . China has stopped publishing daily COVID data amid reports of a huge spike in cases . en . . 2022-12-25.
  15. Web site: 2023-01-04 . China data 'under-represents' true impact of Covid outbreak – WHO . 2023-01-05 . . en.

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