’Try not to write Covid’: China hospital’s notice for doctors preparing death certificate

Mangalore Today News Network

Beijing, Jan 18, 2023: Doctors in China have claimed they are being discouraged from citing Covid-19 as the cause of death for patients in hospitals.

 

According to a report with Reuters, six doctors at public hospitals across China have said they had either received similar oral instructions discouraging them from attributing deaths to COVID or were aware that their hospitals had such policies.

Several said they were told such guidance came from "the government", though none knew from which department.

Moreso, a printed notice at a private hospital read ’doctors should “try not to” write COVID-induced respiratory failure on death certificates’.

Instead, if the deceased had an underlying disease, that should be named as the main cause of death, the notice further read.

If doctors believe that the death was caused solely by Covid-19 pneumonia, they must report to their superiors, who will arrange for two levels of "expert consultations" before a Covid death is confirmed, it said.

Earlier, the World Health Organisation had expressed concerns, saying China has drastically underreported Covid deaths as the coronavirus runs rampant in the country, which abandoned its strict "zero-Covid" regime in December.

COVID-RELATED DEATHS IN CHINA

On Saturday, China reported nearly 60,000 Covid-related deaths since early December, offering hard numbers for an unprecedented surge that was apparent in overcrowded hospitals and packed crematoriums, even as the government released little data about the status of the pandemic for weeks.

The toll included 5,503 deaths due to respiratory failure caused by Covid-19 and 54,435 fatalities from other ailments combined with Covid-19 since December 8, the National Health Commission announced.

It said those ’deaths related to Covid’ occurred in hospitals, which means anyone who died at home would not be included in the numbers.

This is a roughly ten-fold increase from previously reported figures, but still short of expectations of international experts, who have said China could see more than a million Covid-related deaths this year.

CHINA ALLOWS CONCERTS, PUBLIC EVENTS AMID COVID OUTBREAK

Meanwhile, the first weekend after Covid-19 restrictions ended last month, dozens of young Chinese jostled in the dark at a heavy-metal concert at a tiny Shanghai music venue that reeked of sweat and hard liquor.

It was the kind of freedom young Chinese had demanded in late November in protests against the zero-Covid policy that became the biggest outpouring of public anger in mainland China since President Xi Jinping took power a decade ago.

After three years of lockdowns, testing, economic hardship and isolation, many of China’s Generation Z — the 280 million born between 1995 and 2010 — had found a new political voice, repudiating their stereotypes as either nationalist keyboard warriors or apolitical loafers.

Courtesy: India Today