Beijing
China has limited the definition of COVID-19 deaths and will henceforth only account the deaths from pneumonia or respiratory failure, a Chinese health official has said as virus cases surge across the country.
Under the new definition, deaths occurring over pre-existing illnesses are not counted as COVID-19 deaths, said Wang Guiqiang, the head of infectious disease at Peking Universityâs No. 1 Hospital, reports AP news agency.
He said that the National Health Commission recently revised its guidelines to âscientifically and objectively reflect deaths caused by the coronavirus pandemicâ.
âDeaths caused by other diseases such as cardiovascular or cerebrovascular diseases and heart attacks are not classified as deaths caused by coronavirus,â Wang said.
One of the main aims of narrowing the definition seems to be linked to limiting the number of deaths being reported even as reports and images of overloaded hospitals and crematoriums and queues of hearses emerge.
Till Wednesday, China has reported 2,966 new cases and there have been fewer than 10 Covid deaths since the beginning of December. The country has so far recorded only 5,241 deaths since the virus outbreak was first reported from Wuhan in 2020.
The health official claimed that when compared with the first outbreak of Covid in early 2020, when most patients died of respiratory failure, âthe main cause of death from infection with Omicron is the underlying diseases. Respiratory failure directly caused by the new coronavirus infection is rare.â
The new definition illustrated by China is at odds with World Health Organization (WHO) guidance, which states that many countries now use âexcess mortalityâ as a more accurate measure to gauge the true impact of the pandemic.
According to WHO, excess mortality is defined as the difference in the total number of deaths in a crisis compared with those expected under normal conditions.
Covid-19 excess mortality accounts for both the total number of deaths directly attributed to the virus as well as the indirect impact, such as disruption to essential health services or travel disruptions, the WHO says.
Meanwhile, various institutes who have run projections to accurately capture the true number of Covid cases argue that China might be experiencing 1 million Covid infections and 5,000 virus deaths every day.
It is believed that the cases might peak at over 4 million in March, according to Airfinity Ltd., a London-based research firm that focuses on predictive health analytics and has been tracking the pandemic since it first emerged.
(With inputs from agencies)
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