BEIJING. — Former high school teacher Ailia was devastated when her 85-year-old father died after displaying COVID-like symptoms as the virus swept through their hometown in the southeastern province of Jiangxi.
While her father was never tested, Ailia and her mother were both confirmed positive around the same time and she believes that COVID was the cause of his death.
As hundreds of millions of Chinese travel to reunite with families for the Lunar New Year holiday starting Jan. 21, many will do so after mourning relatives who died in the COVID-19 wave that has raged across the world’s largest population.
For many, bereavement is mixed with anger over what they say was a lack of preparation 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 that she, like countless Chinese, had supported reopening the economy. Her father died in late December, weeks after China dropped its COVID restrictions.
“We wanted things to open up, but not to open up like this – not at the expense of so many elderly people, which has a huge impact on every family,” she said by phone.
On Saturday, China announced that there had been 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 is an undercount, in part because it excludes people who died at home, like Ailia’s father.
Among those fatalities, 90% were 65 or older and the average age was 80.3 years, a Chinese official said on Saturday.
Many experts have said China failed to take advantage of keeping COVID-19 largely at bay for three years to better prepare its population for reopening, especially its hundreds of millions of elderly — criticism that China rejects.
Shortcomings cited included inadequate vaccination among older people and insufficient supplies of therapeutic drugs.
A Chinese official said on Jan. 6 that more than 90% of people above aged 60 had been vaccinated, but the share of those over age 80 who had received booster shots was only 40% as of Nov. 28, the most recent date for which that data was available.
“If only they used the resources used for controlling the virus for protecting the elderly,” said Ailia, who like many people interviewed declined to use their full name given the sensitivity of criticizing China’s government.
Chinese officials have repeatedly cited the importance of protecting the elderly, announcing various measures, from vaccination drives to setting up a task force in Shanghai, China’s biggest city, to identify high-risk groups. — Reuters
