The Chinese government, which has prided itself since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic on managing the situation in an exemplary manner, stubbornly defends the quality of its approach as the population grapples with an outbreak of deadly cases that is devastating funeral homes under request.
The dichotomy between the official discourse on the impact of the recent abandonment of health restrictions long imposed on the country and the reality experienced on the ground is likely to fuel the mistrust of the population, warns Guy Saint-Jacques, former ambassador of the Canada in China.
“I think it risks undermining the Chinese public’s idea of the superiority of the Communist Party and its ability to manage. Until recently, people had blind faith in the regime and agreed that it knew what it was doing,” notes the analyst.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is also more likely, says Mr. Saint-Jacques, to have his alleged “invincibility” challenged by growing numbers of Chinese, although he succeeded in the fall in consolidating his grip on power during the fall. of the last national congress of communist formation.
After the first cases of infection were detected in late 2019 in the Wuhan area, Beijing implemented severe restrictions involving large-scale lockdowns and lengthy quarantines that remained the norm for nearly three years as other countries were beginning to relax their controls.
The arrival of Omicron and its highly transmissible subvariants and growing popular discontent over the restrictions, however, led to a radical change of course in early December, which allowed the virus to spread rapidly among the Chinese population of over 1 billion people.
The regime has since been declaring only a handful of deaths per day, while studies suggest the possibility of 5,000 daily deaths and more than 1 million deaths in total.
“Completely absurd” figures
Alain Lamarre, specialist in immunology and virology at the National Institute for Scientific Research, notes that the official death figures put forward by Beijing are “completely absurd” and “do not reflect reality at all”.
The Chinese authorities, who present the sudden lifting of health restrictions as a simple “optimization” of their approach, only officially count a few causes of death that can be attributed to the virus, notes Mr. Lamarre, offering a distorted portrait of the situation.
If we let the Omicron variant circulate in a population largely spared until now in terms of infections and which is less well vaccinated, it is inevitable that there will be an exponential rise in cases and a sharp increase in deaths. It’s math.
Alain Lamarre, specialist in immunology and virology at INRS
In fact, the leaders of certain Chinese provinces are now claiming that a majority of their population has now been infected, but remain silent on serious cases and their consequences.
Last week, a World Health Organization expert, Dr.r Mike Ryan said the Chinese data “underplays the true impact of the disease, particularly in terms of deaths”.
In an attempt to give a more accurate portrait of the seriousness of the situation, the washington post analyzed satellite imagery suggesting a surge in funeral home use in several major cities across the country. Some have recently enlarged their parking lot to accommodate more vehicles.
PHOTO NOEL CELIS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Relatives of a deceased who was cremated attend his funeral at a funeral home in Jinghong city, Yunnan province, southern China.
The daily also analyzed several videos showing long lines of people waiting, even at night, to be able to obtain an appointment to have a loved one cremated. A witness noted that he had to keep his father’s remains at home for five days before he succeeded.
The grumbling increases
Guy Saint-Jacques thinks that the Chinese government was well aware of the impact that the lifting of health restrictions would have on this plan but could not help but proceed, not only because of popular discontent, but also of the draconian impact of health restrictions on the country’s economy.
Many local governments have provided huge amounts of money to set up the infrastructure related to the “zero COVID-19” approach, which has also forced the closure of many factories.
Xi Jinping, who was ill-disposed towards the private sector, has changed his speech recently and aims to encourage investment to revive growth, warns Mr. Saint-Jacques.
He expects Chinese discontent to grow as overseas travel resumes and allows them to see firsthand that the rest of the planet has long since shifted to a more permissive approach to health.
“Even if the censors are busy erasing critical messages on social networks, it is clear that people will come to the conclusion that the government was at fault and that it would have had time to develop a transition strategy. more acceptable”, concludes the ex-ambassador.