China's Missing COVID-19 Data

Considering aggregate data, anecdotal accounts, and common sense, it is difficult to downplay the significance of Beijing’s sudden decision to reverse its once prized zero COVID policy, which Chinese President Xi Jinping had claimed as a national and personal victory.

On January 18, during a Lunar New Year message, Xi made his first public comments on the wave of infections that follow China’s reopening, saying that he was “most worried about its spread in China’s vast countryside, where medical services and resources are insufficient.” The following day, health authorities announced that critical COVID-19 cases have peaked in China’s hospitals.

But reliable data on the ongoing COVID-19 surge is hard to come by.

In the wake of the December 7 announcement that Beijing would abruptly abandon its zero COVID policy, relatively trustworthy data has been largely limited to the provincial level. On December 24, the National Health Commission halted its daily data release. During the first two weeks of the post-zero COVID era, the government released implausibly low case numbers (only thousands of new cases per day nationwide).

Full article available via The Diplomat here.