China Denies COVID-19 Rumors Daily... Arrests Made for Spreaders

[Asia Economy Beijing=Special Correspondent Kim Hyunjung] Amid a recent surge in confirmed COVID-19 cases following the easing of quarantine measures, the Chinese government has taken a tough stance against rumors related to COVID-19 and launched internal crackdowns.

According to Tencent News Portal on the 30th, recent posts and videos on Chinese social networking services (SNS) claimed that crematories were insufficient, leading to corpses being burned on the streets. The video is reported to have been filmed in the Pudong area of Shanghai.

[Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

The rumor response platforms operated by the central government and local authorities in China refuted the claims, stating that "it was not corpses but the clothes of the deceased being burned," and that "this occurred during the families’ mourning process." They also added that "this was part of the local customs" and that "the residential committee plans to strengthen management to enable safer ways of mourning."

The previous day, news also emerged that a rumor spreader claiming to have been reinfected with COVID-19 by different variants within five days was arrested. The Suzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stated via SNS that "the claim of a virologist working at a domestic CDC from North Carolina who was infected by different variants within five days is false," adding "there is no such employee at the center, and the 'P4 laboratory' he described as the sample collection site does not exist." According to local media, the investigation by public security authorities revealed that the rumor spreader is a convenience store employee and has been detained for spreading false information.

COVID-19-related rumors are rapidly spreading among Chinese people who feel anxious due to the lack of accurate counting and announcement of confirmed cases. The National Health Commission has stopped disclosing the number of asymptomatic patients, which had been separately counted but not included in confirmed cases, since the 14th. Currently, the confirmed case numbers announced by province include only symptomatic patients, and cases confirmed positive through self-testing kits without reporting to authorities and self-isolating are excluded due to the government’s relaxed quarantine requirements.

Major foreign media and Chinese-language outlets such as Hong Kong Ming Pao cited internal meeting documents from the National Health Commission held privately on the 21st, reporting that the National Disease Prevention and Control Bureau estimated that from the 1st to the 20th of this month, about 248 million people, or approximately 18% of China’s population of 1.4 billion, were confirmed COVID-19 cases. During this period, the number of cases officially recognized by the government was only 61,875.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.