As local research claims that 900 million among China's 1.4 billion population has already been infected with COVID-19 thanks to the tsunami outbreak, the death toll could be ten times more than 60,000. Previously, the officially announced death toll was just 37 since the policy U-turn in early December to early January, and a total of 5,241 since the beginning of the pandemic in 2019. Sad https://t.co/oR2aeq7Vhj — Ben (@benjaminqiu) January 11, 2023Even after the update of the official figure on January 14, very few find it trustworthy. Wang Yaqiu, a senior researcher from Human Rights Watch (HRW), said:The death toll of 37 was too unbelievable, so the CCP now came up with the number 60,000. Because the official figure is suspiciously low and no one knows exactly how many people have died, some have attempted to estimate the scale of the pandemic catastrophe through other means.

Source: New York Times January 19, 2023 21:17 UTC