China's crematoriums 'packed' as Covid cases soar
Agence France-Presse
December 20, 2022
Workers at Beijing crematoriums say they are overwhelmed as China faces a surge in Covid cases that authorities warn could hit its underdeveloped rural hinterland during upcoming public holidays © Noel Celis / AFP
Crematoriums across China are straining to deal with an influx of bodies as the country battles a wave of Covid cases that authorities have said is impossible to track.
Cases are soaring across China, with hospitals struggling and pharmacy shelves stripped bare in the wake of the government's sudden decision to lift years of lockdowns, quarantines and mass testing.
The United States has warned the outbreak is now of concern to the rest of the world, given the potential for further mutations and the size of China's economy.
From the country's northeast to its southwest, crematorium workers told AFP they are struggling to keep up with a surge in deaths.
In Chongqing -- a city of 30 million where authorities this week urged people with mild Covid symptoms to go to work -- one worker told AFP their crematorium had run out of space to keep bodies.
"The number of bodies picked up in recent days is many times more than previously," a staffer who did not give their name said.
"We are very busy, there is no more cold storage space for bodies," they added.
"We are not sure (if it's related to Covid), you need to ask the leaders in charge."
In the southern megapolis of Guangzhou, an employee at one crematorium in Zengcheng district told AFP they were cremating more than 30 bodies a day.
"We have bodies assigned to us from other districts. There's no other option," the employee said.
Another crematorium in the city said they were also "extremely busy".
"It's three or four times busier than in previous years, we are cremating over 40 bodies per day when before it was only a dozen or so," a staffer said.
"The whole of Guangzhou is like this," they added, stressing that it was "hard to say" whether the surge in bodies was linked to Covid.
In the northeastern city of Shenyang, a staff member at a funeral services business said the bodies of the deceased were being left unburied for up to five days because crematoriums are "absolutely packed".
Asked by AFP whether the rise in demand was due to Covid, he said: "What do you think? I've never known a year like this one."
'Potential to mutate'
In the capital Beijing, local authorities on Tuesday reported just five deaths from Covid-19 -- up from two the previous day.
Outside the city's Dongjiao Crematorium, AFP reporters saw more than a dozen vehicles waiting to enter, most of them hearses or funerary coaches.
Delays were obvious, with a driver towards the front of the queue telling AFP he had already waited several hours.
It was not immediately clear whether an increase in Covid deaths was causing the backlog, and crematorium staff declined to answer questions.
The end to mandatory testing has made the toll of China's Covid surge difficult to track, with authorities last week admitting it is now "impossible" to tally how many have fallen sick.
Beijing health officials Tuesday said that only those who had directly died of respiratory failure caused by the virus would be counted under Covid death statistics.
"At present after being infected with the Omicron variant, the main cause of death remains underlying diseases," Wang Guiqiang of Peking University First Hospital told a press conference of the National Health Commission (NHC).
"Old people have other underlying conditions, only a very small number die directly of respiratory failure caused by infection with Covid," they added.
"We are not avoiding the dangers of Covid. At the same time we need to assess Covid's dangers in a scientific manner."
The US State Department said Monday the surge was now a matter of international concern.
"We know that any time the virus is spreading, that it is in the wild, that it has the potential to mutate and to pose a threat to people everywhere," State Department spokesman Ned Price said.
"The toll of the virus is of concern to the rest of the world given the size of China's GDP, given the size of China's economy," he added.
© 2022 AFP
Agence France-Presse
December 20, 2022
Workers at Beijing crematoriums say they are overwhelmed as China faces a surge in Covid cases that authorities warn could hit its underdeveloped rural hinterland during upcoming public holidays © Noel Celis / AFP
Crematoriums across China are straining to deal with an influx of bodies as the country battles a wave of Covid cases that authorities have said is impossible to track.
Cases are soaring across China, with hospitals struggling and pharmacy shelves stripped bare in the wake of the government's sudden decision to lift years of lockdowns, quarantines and mass testing.
The United States has warned the outbreak is now of concern to the rest of the world, given the potential for further mutations and the size of China's economy.
From the country's northeast to its southwest, crematorium workers told AFP they are struggling to keep up with a surge in deaths.
In Chongqing -- a city of 30 million where authorities this week urged people with mild Covid symptoms to go to work -- one worker told AFP their crematorium had run out of space to keep bodies.
"The number of bodies picked up in recent days is many times more than previously," a staffer who did not give their name said.
"We are very busy, there is no more cold storage space for bodies," they added.
"We are not sure (if it's related to Covid), you need to ask the leaders in charge."
In the southern megapolis of Guangzhou, an employee at one crematorium in Zengcheng district told AFP they were cremating more than 30 bodies a day.
"We have bodies assigned to us from other districts. There's no other option," the employee said.
Another crematorium in the city said they were also "extremely busy".
"It's three or four times busier than in previous years, we are cremating over 40 bodies per day when before it was only a dozen or so," a staffer said.
"The whole of Guangzhou is like this," they added, stressing that it was "hard to say" whether the surge in bodies was linked to Covid.
In the northeastern city of Shenyang, a staff member at a funeral services business said the bodies of the deceased were being left unburied for up to five days because crematoriums are "absolutely packed".
Asked by AFP whether the rise in demand was due to Covid, he said: "What do you think? I've never known a year like this one."
'Potential to mutate'
In the capital Beijing, local authorities on Tuesday reported just five deaths from Covid-19 -- up from two the previous day.
Outside the city's Dongjiao Crematorium, AFP reporters saw more than a dozen vehicles waiting to enter, most of them hearses or funerary coaches.
Delays were obvious, with a driver towards the front of the queue telling AFP he had already waited several hours.
It was not immediately clear whether an increase in Covid deaths was causing the backlog, and crematorium staff declined to answer questions.
The end to mandatory testing has made the toll of China's Covid surge difficult to track, with authorities last week admitting it is now "impossible" to tally how many have fallen sick.
Beijing health officials Tuesday said that only those who had directly died of respiratory failure caused by the virus would be counted under Covid death statistics.
"At present after being infected with the Omicron variant, the main cause of death remains underlying diseases," Wang Guiqiang of Peking University First Hospital told a press conference of the National Health Commission (NHC).
"Old people have other underlying conditions, only a very small number die directly of respiratory failure caused by infection with Covid," they added.
"We are not avoiding the dangers of Covid. At the same time we need to assess Covid's dangers in a scientific manner."
The US State Department said Monday the surge was now a matter of international concern.
"We know that any time the virus is spreading, that it is in the wild, that it has the potential to mutate and to pose a threat to people everywhere," State Department spokesman Ned Price said.
"The toll of the virus is of concern to the rest of the world given the size of China's GDP, given the size of China's economy," he added.
© 2022 AFP
People from Hebei in the north to Guangdong in the south have flocked to China's Twitter-style Weibo platform to post about longer-than-normal queues at funeral homes.
Bloomberg December 20, 2022
The low official death tally runs counter to what's been seen across the world
China appears to be seeing an increase in Covid deaths across a swath of the country that aren't being reported in government figures, according to social media posts, adding to speculation that officials are masking the full impact of their abrupt shift away from Covid Zero.
People from Hebei in the north to Guangdong in the south have flocked to China's Twitter-style Weibo platform to post about longer-than-normal queues at funeral homes, and crematoriums handling a growing number of bodies. The reports indicate the wave of fatalities that, until now, has been centered in the capital of Beijing - which has officially had seven deaths in recent days despite an explosion in infections - is quietly rippling through less prominent parts of the country.
A man who said he worked at a crematorium in Hebei wrote in a Weibo post, which has since been deleted, that his facility is performing as many as 22 cremations a day from about four-to-five before December. Screenshots of the original post, which can't be verified by Bloomberg News, continue to circulate across Chinese social media. The poster didn't respond to a request for comment.
A screenshot allegedly showing the rising number of obituaries published by a university to commemorate staff who have recently died has also been widely shared. A Weibo poster in Guangdong said the crematorium he went to had staff working overtime to deal with a spate of deaths among the elderly, while a man in Henan said a funeral parlor he attended was so overwhelmed that bodies were being put in corridors.
In Chongqing, which hasn't officially declared a Covid death since late-November, a woman said her grandfather died over the weekend and she faced a long wait for a death certificate. How China can have so few fatalities - less than 20 since the first tentative steps toward easing Covid controls in late-November - and why they're concentrated in Beijing have also become frequently asked questions across social media platforms.
The skepticism has a solid foundation. The low official death tally runs counter to what's been seen across the world, and even in places like Shanghai and Hong Kong, where omicron's arrival sparked a surge in infections followed swiftly by a wave of fatalities.
Smoke rises from a crematorium at Dongjiao Funeral Parlor, reportedly designated to handle Covid fatalities, in Beijing, on Dec. 19.
But it's been particularly notable given China spent little time putting in place mitigation measures to prepare for this month's dismantling of Covid Zero: the population, especially the elderly, are under-vaccinated, and officials have only recently vowed to add more hospital beds.
The real number of deaths may also have been masked by a change in how to define a Covid fatality. Caixin reported that China had narrowed the guidelines, issuing new guidance this month that notes that some patients who were Covid-positive may have died from underlying illness, and medical facilities have 24 hours to ascertain a person's cause of death. Previously, anyone who died while Covid-positive was considered a Covid death.
Fatalities are just one data point that's evoked suspicion, with the country also abandoning efforts to count all infections after scrapping frequent PCR testing for residents.
It's in China's interest to downplay the severity of the situation. Its vast propaganda apparatus has shifted from trumpeting President Xi Jinping's flagship Covid Zero approach and upbraiding other nations who had shifted to living with the virus, to downplaying its risks and likening Covid to a cold.
Post a commentChina has maintained a tight grip on information throughout the pandemic, from the earliest days in Wuhan to sporadic updates on vaccination progress and closely controlled press conferences. That makes the snapshots on social media an important way to gauge the reality of the country's worst ever Covid outbreak.
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