Covid-19: Leaked cremation data hint at true scale of China’s death rate

Cremation figures released and then quickly withdrawn by authorities in China’s Zhejiang province appear to confirm widespread doubts about the government’s official pandemic death count, and lend support to international forecasts which predicted roughly 1.5 million deaths from covid in the weeks after China abandoned its zero covid policy last December.In the relatively wealthy and developed eastern province, where more than 99% of all deaths end in cremation, the number of cremations in the first quarter of 2023 was just under 171 000, compared with 99 000 in the first quarter of 2022 and 90 000 in the first quarter of 2021.Extrapolated across China, this 72% rise in mortality would translate to about 1.5 million excess deaths in the first quarter of 2023, closely matching predictions of several models developed by epidemiologists.12In a normal year, first quarter cremation figures for all provinces would be released around September as part of…
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