How Chinese celebrity deaths expose its big lie about COVID toll

China has repeatedly been called out for lying about its COVID-19 toll. Since Beijing broke away from its ‘zero-COVID’ policy in December, cases have skyrocketed, hospitals have been overrun and funeral homes are working overtime. While China has announced only 22 COVID deaths since December – and just 5,259 deaths overall, one of the lowest in the world – experts, scientists, global health bodies and politicians beg to differ. They say China is undercounting and excluding deaths to protect its political and social system. Though China continues to retain an iron grip on the press and social media, a string of celebrity deaths is exposing the official narrative. Let’s take a closer look: As per BBC, the death of opera singer Chu Lanlan last month caused a stir given her age. While the family of the 40-year-old did not give specifics on her death, they described her passing as an ‘abrupt departure’. Another death that hit the headlines was of actor Gong Jintang. The 83-year-old was famed for his role as ‘Father Kang’ on China’s longest-running TV show, as per BBC.

While details about his demise are scant, some have speculated about its links to COVID.

“Please god, please treat the elderly better,” Gong’s co-star Hu Yanfen wrote on Weibo. “R.I.P Father Kang. This wave have really claimed many elders’ lives, let’s make sure we protect the elderly in our families,” another Weibo user said. As per The Guardian, 84-year-old screenwriter Ni Zhen, known for his work on the 1991 masterpiece Raise the Red Lantern passed away last month. On 2 January, ex- journalist Hu Fuming passed away at 87. A retired professor of Nanjing University, Hu was the main author of a 1987 piece which marks the start of China’s ‘Boluan Fanzheng’ period – a return to normal after the Cultural Revolution, as per BBC. The Guardian reported that former soccer Wang Ruoji also passed away at age 37 last month. Interestingly, it was disclosed that Wang died of COVID-19. [caption id=“attachment_11922442” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Patients with Covid-19 lay in beds at Tangshan Gongren Hospital in China’s northeastern city of Tangshan. AFP.[/caption] Wang Jingguang, who directed the 2013 movie Never Come Back, passed away at 54 last month. As per The Telegraph UK, some Chines media outlets have attributed high-profile deaths to ‘severe colds’. Like Wu Guanying,  a professor at China’s Tsinghua University, who passed away at age 67 in December. The Telegraph UK quoted state media as noting that 16 scientists from China’s top science and engineering schools had died between 21 and 26 December. Chinese social media users question narrative The string of high-profile deaths has led some on social media to question the state narrative. “Science is only one field, there are people from many other fields who have died too, not to mention more ordinary elderly people who have no voice,” a user wrote on Weibo. “Whether it is academicians or celebrities … or my relatives and friends in close contact, I really feel many people have died, but experts keep saying that was not the case,” one said Another added,: “I beg those adults who can’t see the ants on the ground to see how many people have passed away due to Covid. Just how many people who have great contributions to the country have died? And these were all celebrities.” The Guardian quoted Haishang Yilanghua a Chinese  influencer with 364,000 followers as writing on Weibo, “Many public figures have died, with many of them passing at a young age.  These deaths were made public, but there were still many other ordinary people who suffered and died that was not posted online.”

The Telegraph UK quoted a comment posted under one obituary as reading: “Did he also die of ‘bad flu’?”

Another user under an article detailing the death of Ni pointed out, “Even if you trawl through the whole internet you can’t find any reference to his cause of death.” China remains defiant But China shows no sign of relenting. China defended on Thursday its handling of its raging COVID-19 outbreak after President Joe Biden voiced concern and the World Health Organisation (WHO) said Beijing was under-reporting virus deaths. The WHO’s emergencies director, Mike Ryan, said on Wednesday in some of the UN health agency’s most critical remarks to date, that Chinese officials were under-representing data on several fronts. China scrapped its stringent COVID controls last month after protests against them, abandoning a policy that had shielded its 1.4 billion population from the virus for three years. China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told a regular press briefing in Beijing that China had transparently and quickly shared COVID data with the WHO. [caption id=“attachment_11922412” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Covid-19 infections spiked across China last month after years of draconian zero-Covid restrictions with little warning or preparation and quickly filled hospitals and cremation grounds Image Courtesy AP[/caption] Mao said that China’s “epidemic situation is controllable” and that it hoped the WHO would “uphold a scientific, objective, and impartial position”. “Facts have proved that China has always, in accordance with the principles of legality, timeliness, openness and transparency,  maintained close communication and shared relevant information and data with the WHO in a timely manner,” Mao said. China reported one new COVID death in the mainland for Wednesday, compared with five a day earlier, bringing its official death toll to 5,259. Ryan said on Wednesday the numbers China was publishing under-represented hospital admissions, intensive care unit patients and deaths. Hours later, President Joe Biden also raised concern about China’s handling of a COVID outbreak that is filling hospitals and overwhelming some funeral homes. “They’re very sensitive … when we suggest they haven’t been that forthcoming,” Biden told reporters while on a visit to Kentucky. The French health minister voiced similar fears while German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach voiced concern about a new COVID subvariant linked to growing hospitalisations in the northeastern United States. The United States is one of more than a dozen countries that have imposed restrictions on travellers from China. China has criticised such border controls as unreasonable and unscientific and the government said on Thursday that its border with its special administrative region of Hong Kong would also reopen on Sunday, for the first time in three years.

Millions of people will be travelling within China later this month for the Lunar New Year holiday.

More from Explainers

Why Mossad was not on board with Israel’s strike on Hamas in Qatar Giorgio Armani will: Who will get the inheritance? What happens to his fashion empire?

China’s government has played down the severity of the situation in recent days and the state-run Global Times said in an article on Wednesday that COVID had peaked in several cities including the capital, Beijing, citing interviews with doctors. But at a hospital in Shanghai’s suburban Qingpu district, patients on beds lined the corridors of the emergency treatment area and main lobby on Thursday, most of them elderly and several breathing with oxygen tanks, a Reuters witness said. A notice on a board advised that patients would have to wait an average of five hours to be seen. Staff declared one elderly patient dead and pinned a note to the body on the floor stating the cause of death “respiratory failure”. Police patrolled outside a nearby crematorium, where a stream of mourners carried wreathes and waited to collect the ashes of loved ones. With inputs from agencies Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.