Satellite images in China showed that people were flocking to crematoriums in several cities in the Asian nation as the country continues to fight a surge of COVID-19 cases following the lifting of its "zero-COVID" policies.
The images were taken by Maxar Technologies in late December and early January and were reviewed by CNN. They show a funeral home that was located on the outskirts of Beijing and appears to have constructed a brand-new parking area. It can also be seen with lines of vehicles outside of funeral homes in Kunming, Nanjing, Chengdu, Tangshan, and Huzhou.
China's COVID-19 Death Toll
The situation comes after Chinese officials recently moved away from the stringent health protocols after widespread protests from people who were tired of the two years of draconian measures. The policies shielded the nation from the kind of mass deaths seen in Western nations, a factor that the Chinese Communist Party used to defend its decisions.
Since the lifting of those rules, Chinese citizens have regained some semblance of freedom in their personal lives to travel around the country. The satellite pictures were found to be consistent with reporting and witness accounts that have been shared on social media platforms regarding overcrowding in funeral homes and crematoriums, as per CNN.
There have been several reports in Beijing on the makeshift facilities that were being used to store the deceased. This came as overworked staff tried to keep up with the volume of crates that contained yellow body bags, and families reported that they had to wait for days to bury or cremate their loved ones.
On the other hand, China's official COVID-19 death toll since the lifting of the zero-COVID policies remains strikingly low, with only 37 deaths since December 7, 2022. Now, with reports of overwhelmed hospitals and funeral homes pouring in, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United States have accused China of under-representing the severity of the recent outbreak.
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Withholding Accurate Data
Top global health officials have urged Beijing to share more information regarding the explosive spread of infections. During a news briefing in Geneva on Wednesday, WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that they continued to ask China for more rapid, regular, reliable data on hospitalizations and deaths.
According to the Washington Post, one overwhelmed funeral home located in Chengdu, China, allegedly stopped offering memorial services and allotted only two minutes for each family to say goodbye to their loved ones before cremation. There were also reports of scalpers in Shanghai who sold places in lines at funeral homes for $300 each to grieving relatives to get cremation slots.
These were only some of the issues that the Chinese government has been facing but has not reported to the global community. One receptionist who worked at the Jiangnan Funeral Home in Chongqing said that in the six years they have worked there, it has never been this busy.
The situation comes as there have been reports that roughly 90% of citizens in Henan, China, which is the country's third most populous province, have become infected by the deadly virus. Provincial official Kan Quancheng was the one that revealed the figure, coming in at 88.5 million people, BBC reported.
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