China Covid Spike: Shanghai Reports First Deaths Amid Surge In Infections

The omicron variant has spread through the population, infecting most starting from a newborn to adults of 100 years of age, according to the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission

A medical worker from Zhejiang Province collects swab sample from a resident for COVID-19 nucleic acid test in Shanghai, China (Getty Images)

New Delhi: Three people in Shanghai succumbed to Covid-19 on Sunday in one of the biggest surges in infection in China since the current outbreak.

Three people aged between 89 and 91 died on Sunday, according to Shanghai’s municipal government, reported news agency Bloomberg. All the casualties had underlying diseases, as per the government.

Earlier in mid-March, two people died in the northeastern province of Jilin. These were the first deaths in more than a year in China, which had imposed a strict zero tolerance approach to curb the spread until the more infectious delta and omicron variants emerged last year.

There were growing concerns about potential Covid-related deaths, particularly among the elderly, before the announcement. While two elderly-care facilities in Shanghai are fighting outbreaks resulting from the omicron variant, fatalities have occurred, according to the Wall Street Journal, Caixin, and other local media. However, no deaths have been reported officially.

More than 22,000 cases have been reported on Sunday amid strict lockdown and repeated testing of Shanghai’s 25 million residents failed to curb infections.

Shanghai has now become the epicenter of the Covid outbreak since Wuhan emerged as the most affected city two years back. However, most people with the infection have few if any symptoms, according to the government, and the reported number of severely ill patients remains negligible.

In fact, the omicron variant has spread through the population, infecting everyone from a newborn who was just 10 days old to someone nearing 100, according to the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission.

Meanwhile, Beijing is trying to conceal the actual death toll by masking the cause of death, according to the news agency ANI.

Citing Financial Times, Taiwan News reported that if someone dies after contracting Covid-19 but with complications such as cancer, heart disease, or diabetes at the time, hospitals won't classify the death as resulting from the infection, but as a chronic illness instead.