Celebrity deaths raise concerns about China’s death toll

• The official Covid death toll is questioned as more notable Chinese perish.
• Chu Lanlan’s passing away last month at the age of 40 shocked many.
• The WHO said China is significantly underestimating Covid’s true toll.

The official Covid death toll has come under scrutiny as more and more deaths of prominent Chinese citizens are made public.

Given how young she was, Chu Lanlan’s passing away last month at the age of 40 shocked many.

Her family expressed their sorrow for her “abrupt departure,” but they did not provide any other information.

After China’s tight zero-Covid policy was abandoned in December, infections and fatalities shot up dramatically.

Hospitals and crematoriums are reportedly becoming overcrowded.

However, the nation has stopped releasing daily case data and, according to its own stringent standards, has only reported 22 Covid deaths since December.

Now, only fatal respiratory conditions like pneumonia are included in the statistics.

The World Health Organization (WHO) issued a warning on Wednesday, claiming that China was grossly underestimating Covid’s true toll in the nation, particularly in terms of fatalities.

However, the passing of Chu Lanlan and other people has led to rumors of more casualties than those listed in official statistics.

Chu Lanlan was a soprano who specialized in Peking Opera, a kind of theatre in which actors utilize speech, song, dance, and combat moves to tell stories, and who was also active in charity causes, according to the specialized news website.

Many Chinese internet users were grieved by the news of actor Gong Jintang’s passing on New Year’s Day.

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