China’s central health authority has stopped publishing daily Covid-19 data, ending a three-year effort that has drawn mounting criticism for massively underreporting the surge in infections now sweeping the country.
In a one-line announcement Sunday, China’s National Health Commission said it would no longer issue its daily report on Covid infections and deaths. Relevant Covid information will instead be published by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention for reference and research, it said, without giving any further information.
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In its final daily report Saturday, the commission said there were just over 4,100 locally transmitted cases recorded the prior day, and no deaths.
Doubts over the reliability of China’s health data have persisted for years, but there has been a widening gulf between the official numbers and anecdotal evidence of spiraling infections on the ground. Hospitals and crematoriums are filling up, while pharmacies in many big cities have run out of fever and cold medicines as people fall sick, The Wall Street Journal has reported.
