
The National Health Commission (NHC) said on Sunday that China will stop publishing daily statistics for Covid-19 cases and fatalities, terminating a practice that started in early 2020.
After Beijing swiftly demolished its zero-Covid approach, cities all around China have grappled with escalating infections, a related scarcity of medications, and overcrowded hospital rooms.
The NHC announced the policy change but did not provide a rationale, saying, “Starting today, we will no longer publish daily updates on the pandemic.”
While authorities have restricted the medical definition of a Covid death, a move experts predict may reduce the number of fatalities attributed to the virus, the elimination of tight testing standards has made caseloads practically hard to manage.
The National Health Commission (NHC) stated that “the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) would publish information regarding the epidemic for reference and research purposes,” but it did not define the kind or frequency of information that would be released by the CDC.