World News
Doctors in China discouraged writing COVID-19 as cause of death on certificates
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:
- Doctors in China are being urged not to write COVID-19 on death certificates, Reuters reported.
- If the patient had underlying diseases, doctors have been told to write that as the cause of death.
- China has been criticized for grossly underreporting its COVID-19 deaths.
If a person who has COVID-19 dies in China, chances are their death certificate won’t mention the virus.
Six doctors in public hospitals across China say they have been instructed to not attribute deaths to COVID-19 if the patient had any underlying health diseases, Reuters reported. Instead, those health conditions should be listed as the main cause of death on the deceased’s death certificate.
A physician at a private hospital in Beijing told Reuters about a printed notice in the hospital’s emergency department, which said doctors should “try not to” write COVID-induced respiratory failure as the cause of death on death certificates.
If the person who died did not have any underlying health conditions, doctors must report it to superiors, who go through two rounds of “expert consultations” before classifying it as a COVID death, the notice said. A copy of the notice was seen by Reuters.
Patients have also said they were not tested for the virus, even though they arrived at the hospitals with respiratory symptoms akin to those of COVID-19.
“We have stopped classifying COVID deaths since the reopening in December,” a doctor at one of Shanghai’s public hospitals told Reuters. “It is pointless to do that because almost everyone is positive.”
Public health experts, including some from the World Health Organization, have criticized China for underreporting its COVID-19 deaths.
China relaxed most of its COVID-19 restrictions in early December after protests erupted across the country over the government’s prolonged restrictions. The country’s COVID cases spiked after it reopened, with hospitals, morgues, and crematoriums all overwhelmed by demand.
Even after China abandoned its zero-COVID policy, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention was recording daily COVID deaths in the single digits.
On January 14, China’s National Health Commission revised its official statistics and said that almost 60,000 people died from COVID in China from December 8, 2022, to January 12, 2023, a figure the World Health Organization welcomed.
Source: Reuters
RSM
January 23, 2023 at 7:01 pm
Gee. In the US, doctors did not have to be ordered to lie under Trump. They were happy to do it and attribute most deaths to Covid under Trump. They started adjusting for true causes to help prop up Joe Biden.
Grizz Mann
January 23, 2023 at 10:57 pm
The Bidenreich= the most transparent administration in History!
mike barrett
January 26, 2023 at 5:53 pm
Same old Trump Wonder World of Fantasy for the gullible.
Robin Howe
January 23, 2023 at 11:17 pm
There were over 60,000 deaths in China in the first year of COVID. This had been proven 2 years ago. We all knew China was lying about everything from the beginning. Still trust your public health officials? They lied to you from the beginning as well.
Izzy
January 24, 2023 at 12:43 am
The whole Covid and vaccine was a lie from the get-go. Just in time for an election. Every person involved in this scam should be annihilated.
Patty
January 24, 2023 at 1:26 am
Agree with all comments. They lied from the beginning, and still are. Our government is complicit, Obama funded gain of function in the Wuhan lab before the corona virus was created, with the purpose of creating it.
mike barrett
January 26, 2023 at 5:55 pm
You do know the virus was actually made at our secret CIA base on the dark side of the moon. The Wuhan lab is a diversion.
Don
January 24, 2023 at 11:01 am
Why would anyone expect anything else from a totalitarian communist government? Truth is meaningless in these governments. I think it was Krushchev who said that “a lie is truth if it fits promoted the agenda.”
Sean Richman
January 26, 2023 at 10:00 pm
The government will always lie yesterday,lie tomorrow ,lie the next day and it just keeps going,on and on.We should be used to it.