China announces first Covid death in six months with ruthless new measures in place

For comparison, as of last Thursday, the UK has reported 20,248,860 cases and 172,376 deaths for a population of some 68.7 million people. The US, meanwhile, with a population of 331.9 million, has reported 98.3 million cases and one million deaths.

The accuracy of China’s reported statistics have been called into question. Critics, for example, have highlighted how unlikely it seems that the outbreak in Shanghai earlier this year led to only two deaths despite an outbreak that lasted two months.

In fact, estimates from medical experts at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore for example, suggest that something closer to 3.3 million cases and 15,800 deaths might be more accurate.However, these figures, while worse than those officially reported, are still significantly lower than the equivalent for the UK and the US, even before population size is taken into account.

A couple of notable, if slight, policy shifts recently have been linked to tragedies involving the potentially avoidable deaths of young children from non-Covid causes — with medical assistance having been rendered impossible by zero-Covid measures.

READ MORE: China grapples with unrest as residents erupt against lockdown

Article source: https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1699180/covid-china-announces-first-official-death-six-months-new-lockdown