Shillong, June 16: According to media reports, China has decided to omit the number of cremations conducted last winter from a quarterly report, thereby withholding a crucial indicator of the pandemic death toll during the country’s largest wave of Covid infections.
The Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs recently released summary statistics on marriage and social welfare for the fourth quarter of 2022, following months of unexplained delays that led to speculation about the country’s ability to track relevant data, as reported by The Guardian.
Notably absent from the quarterly report was the nationwide tally of cremations, a figure that has been made public by the ministry since 2007.
Several provinces, including Jiangsu and Zhejiang, did not include this data in their recent reports, and some regions have yet to release any information at all, according to the South China Morning Post.
During the third quarter of 2022, a country with a population of 1.4 billion recorded over 4 million cremations.
Comparing these figures on a quarterly or year-on-year basis could have provided insights into the number of deaths associated with Covid, especially considering China’s abrupt shift away from its zero-Covid policy last winter.
The sudden change in approach led to a massive surge in cases, overwhelming hospitals and funeral homes in December of that year.