China has failed to reveal statistics on how many cremations occurred at the end of last year when the Covid-19 outbreak raged in many cities, in an apparent bid to obscure the number of deaths when the pandemic swept across the country, according to a report by CNN, which said “the national number of cremations was omitted from recent data from China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs”.
This appeared to be the first time in 10 years that fourth quarter data was not included in the yearly figures, the report said, suggesting that authorities may want to hide the number of deaths when hospitals were swamped with patients and crematoriums overwhelmed with bodies and people scrambled for scarce medicine amid poor preparation by the national government prior to its policy U-turn. One commentator said the failure to provide the data “signals that the number of excess deaths could be significant.”
Read the full report: CNN.
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