Chinese who lost relatives to COVID anger at failure to

Chinese who lost relatives to COVID anger at failure to protect elders – Portal

BEIJING, Jan. 18 (Portal) – Former high school teacher Ailia was devastated when her 85-year-old father died after displaying COVID-like symptoms as the virus swept through her hometown in southeastern Jiangxi province.

While her father was never tested, Ailia and her mother were both confirmed positive around the same time and she believes COVID was a cause of his death.

As hundreds of millions of Chinese travel from Jan. 21 to meet with their families for the Lunar New Year holiday, many will do so after mourning relatives who have died in the COVID-19 wave, which has been the largest population of the world has raged.

For many, grief is mixed with anger at what they describe as a lack of preparedness to protect the elderly before China suddenly abandoned its “zero-COVID” policy in December 2022 after three years of testing, travel restrictions and lockdowns.

Ailia, 56, said she, like countless Chinese, has supported the reopening of the economy. Her father died in late December, weeks after China lifted its COVID restrictions.

“We wanted things to open up, but not open up like that — not at the expense of so many older people, which has a huge impact on any family,” she said over the phone.

On Saturday, China announced it had nearly 60,000 COVID-related hospital deaths since the end of “zero-COVID” — a 10-fold increase from previous figures — but many international experts say that’s an undercount, in part because it excludes them people who died at home, like Ailia’s father.

Among those deaths, 90% were 65 years or older and the median age was 80.3 years, a Chinese official said on Saturday.

Many experts have said China has failed to largely contain COVID-19 for three years to better prepare its population for reopening, particularly its hundreds of millions of elderly – criticisms China dismisses.

Deficiencies mentioned included inadequate vaccinations among older people and an inadequate supply of therapeutic drugs.

A Chinese official said on January 6 that more than 90% of people over 60 had been vaccinated, but the proportion of those over 80 who had received booster shots was only 40% as of November 28, the latest date for to whom this data was available.

“If only they would use the resources to fight the virus to protect the elderly,” said Ailia, who, like many of the respondents, declined to use her full name because of her harsh criticism of the Chinese government.

Chinese officials have repeatedly stressed the importance of protecting the elderly, announcing various measures ranging from vaccination campaigns to setting up a task force in Shanghai, China’s largest city, to identify high-risk groups.

Beijing’s decision to end “zero-COVID” came after rare, widespread street protests against the policy in late November, but public complaints about China’s handling of the end of COVID restrictions have largely come through heavily censored social media.

Several analysts said China’s handling of COVID had eroded trust in the government, particularly among upper-middle-class city dwellers, but they saw no threat to President Xi Jinping’s rule or the Communist Party.

Hurry and messy

Lila Hong, 33, who works in marketing for a carmaker, was in Wuhan three years ago when the pandemic began there. While her family weathered that harrowing early days when little was known about the coronavirus, she lost two grandparents and one great-uncle last month after contracting COVID-19.

Hong recalls visiting a crowded crematorium in Wuhan with her father to collect her grandparents’ ashes – a grim but common experience during China’s COVID surge.

“It should have been a very solemn and respectful situation. That’s how you imagine it, but actually it felt like queuing at the hospital,” she said.

“I’m not saying the reopening isn’t good,” Hong said. “I just think they should have given more time to do the prep work.”

A Beijing resident surnamed Zhang, 66, said he has lost four people close to him to the virus since early December, including his 88-year-old aunt, who became infected in hospital.

Like others, he said he felt the aftermath of her death would be messy, precipitous, and out of tradition.

“People didn’t have a chance to say goodbye to their loved ones. If we can’t have a decent life, we should at least be able to have a decent death,” he said.

“It’s very sad.”

DEFICIT OF TRUST

Of seven grieving relatives Portal spoke to for this article, all but one said COVID was omitted from their loved one’s death certificates, although they believe it was a major trigger in their deaths.

Relatives were also skeptical about the official death toll, with several citing lost confidence in the government during three years of “zero-COVID” pandemic management.

Philip, a 22-year-old student from Hebei province, which surrounds Beijing, supported anti-lockdown protests in November but feels disappointed with the way the reopening was handled and blames the government.

“It seems like they have all the power in the world, and yet they haven’t done so well. If it was a company CEO I think he would have to resign,” said Philip, who lost his 78-year-old grandfather on December 30.

“The hospital had no effective medicine,” he recalled. “It was very crowded and there weren’t enough beds.”

After his grandfather died, his body was removed from the bed and quickly replaced with another patient.

“The nurses and doctors were so busy. They seemed to be constantly writing death certificates and handing out copies to relatives. There have been so many deaths… it’s a great tragedy.”

Additional coverage by Alessandro Diviggiano and the Beijing Newsroom; Edited by Tony Munroe and Michael Perry

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