COVID Crisis Deepens in China as Crematoriums Operate 24/7

Scalpers in Shanghai are even selling slots for cremation

By its authoritarian nature based on coercion, the Chinese communist government requires its institutions to deny reality when the country’s interests are at stake, an approach that obviously affected its handling of the pandemic. So, when Beijing reported only 37 COVID-related deaths from December to the second week of January, you had to be hopelessly naive to believe that these figures were real.

Under international pressure, China, on January 14, finally admitted that the figures in question were much higher: 59,938 deaths recorded since the lifting of restrictions on December 7, although Chinese who died at home were not included in the data, according to The Washington Post.

No one knows the truth on this matter, but what is certain is that China is going through its worst period since the 2019 outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan.

Apocalypse Now

Surprisingly, the communist party’s deep-rooted culture of deception was brought to light by one of its own institutions, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC revealed that new daily COVID-19 infections in China peaked at more than 7 million around December 22 and deaths at more than 4,000 on January 4.

We can thank the Chinese CDC for its openness, but even these numbers are disputed by its own former chief scientist, Zeng Guang. Guang believes that the latest wave of COVID-19 has yet to reach its peak, which could materialize only in March. He also expects the national infection rate to reach 80% sometime in the Chinese Lunar New Year, which started on January 22 and is due to end on February 20.

If Guang is right, it means that more than 1.1 billion people might be infected by COVID-19 in the following weeks in China.

Let’s go further in the predictions: a University of Washington’s health institute predicted that “the Chinese death toll could be well over 1 million during 2023.” The British health data firm Airfinity is more pessimistic and thinks that 1.7 million people will die across China by the end of April.

Crematoriums Operating at Full Capacity

This could explain why funeral homes are struggling to operate at a sustained pace. “Satellite images taken over multiple cities in China show heightened activity outside crematoriums and funeral homes”, NBC News reported on January 12. In the Tongzhou District, on the outskirts of Beijing, a parking lot was built at a funeral home to accommodate the influx of visitors.

As a matter of fact, long lineups are forming early in the morning along the funeral homes. The Washington Post revealed that scalpers are “selling slots for cremation in Shanghai, jacking up the price as though they were concert tickets.”

A worker at Shanghai’s Baoxing Funeral Home said to The Epoch Times in December that he was burning 400 to 500 bodies a day, up from a high of 90 before restrictions were lifted in China. Due to overwhelming demand, Beijing’s Babaoshan funeral home is also operating 24 hours a day.

India Today mentioned that because of a shortage of medical resources in remote areas, village clinics had to be closed, which resulted in more deaths. “There have also been cases of elderly patients in rural China resorting to suicide, consuming pesticides or other forms of poisons due to infection-related anxiety‌”, India Today wrote.

In view of that bleak outlook and given China’s strong taste for secrecy, at least 20 countries, including the United States and Canada, decided to impose new requirements on Chinese travelers.

Sources

India Today, NBC News, Reuters (through Global News), The Epoch Times #1, #2, The Washington Post