The Chinese Communist Party Continues Its Numbers Games Even After the End of Zero-COVID Policy

(Minghui.org) The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has always claimed that it serves the people wholeheartedly when, in fact, whatever it does is only to serve its own agenda. 

It cited “scientific evidence” to support its zero-COVID policy when other countries had learned to live with the virus, given the fact that the Omicron variant was shown to have a higher transmission rate but lower fatality rate when compared to earlier variants. 

After the CCP recently decided to end the zero-COVID policy in the face of a struggling economy and citizen protests, it said the COVID symptoms were not much different from those of a cold and asked every citizen to be responsible for their own health. While Chinese citizens were relieved to see the end of the draconian pandemic measures, they were frustrated to see the regime still playing numbers games when it came to reporting COVID cases and deaths. 

As COVID cases skyrocket across China, the CCP continues to report its unusually low “accurate” numbers. After the Liaoning Province Health Commission announced on Weibo social media, “5 new cases today, all of them in Shenyang [the capital],” netizens were furious at the blatant lie. 

“Stop the nonsense! I have more than five friends who got infected,” one person posted. 

“Oh, five? I know all of them,” another person wrote. “There are five newly infected members in my family!”

According to the Central News Agency, China’s National Health Commission (NHC) revealed at a meeting on December 21 that the agency estimated that, between December 1 and 20, there were about 248 million cases of infection, representing 17.6% of China’s population. But that number was never officially reported.

Censorship and Numbers Games

The first coronavirus infection was detected in December 2019, but officials and news media controlled by the CCP downplayed the situation. Even after the epicenter of Wuhan was locked down on January 23, 2020, government agencies at every level were still required to under-report the number of infections and misinform the public. As of March 6, 2020, China officially reported 80,813 cases, including 67,592 in Wuhan alone, and 3,073 deaths.

The CCP’s cover up of the pandemic caused tremendous damage. By March 6, 2020, the disease had spread to nearly 100 countries and territories with over 100,000 infections and close to 3,500 deaths around the world. Right now, over 661 million total infections have been reported worldwide with 6.7 million deaths.

Liu Jiaxin, a resident of Wuhan who arrived in Los Angeles in September 2020, witnessed the entire process. While in Wuhan, he lived within walking distance of Huanan Seafood Market, where the virus was believed to have originated. He was very nervous when he heard about the disease. But all the news media—which are controlled by the CCP—said that the virus could not spread to humans and denounced the “rumor.” Liu trusted the government and felt safe. 

After he started having symptoms, however, both the local hospital and neighborhood administration dropped the ball, leaving Liu with no access to appropriate treatment. Although his symptoms—coughing up blood and fever—were COVID symptoms, he was not reported as such. In the end, Liu took medications himself and recovered, but he lost his sense of taste and smell forever.

“You can never believe what the [CCP] government says,” Liu said. “You need to find out the facts for yourself.” From a friend working at a crematorium, he learned there were at least 5,000 deaths in the city every day at peak time, but ordinary citizens would not know that. 

Liu said that getting infected in itself is not that frightening as long as there is timely and proper treatment. He commented that the most terrifying thing is that the CCP only cares about its image, not people’s lives. In his apartment complex, two siblings lost both parents to the virus. “The government did not do anything about the kids,” he said. 

Even the Fangcang (makeshift) hospitals were nothing like what the CCP claimed. “They built a shelter on an open field and held people who were positive as well as suspected to be positive there,” Liu recalled. “I was there, and there was no medical treatment at all. I saw many man-made tragedies.”

Endless Lies

During the past few years of zero-COVID policy, China’s economy has come to a standstill, and people’s lives have been turned upside down. Because testing and quarantining were center stage, many non-COVID patients died due to lack of access to medical care or people starved to death at home. 

A fire that broke out in Urumqi, Xinjiang, on November 24, 2022, and killed more than ten people became the last straw for many people, who blamed the lockdown policy for the deadly fire. People in many places took to the streets to protest the zero-COVID policy. 

Given the circumstances, on December 5 the CCP announced the end of the zero-COVID policy and the lifting of all travel restrictions. Since the regime’s algorithm that drives the propaganda machine did not change, however, people continued to hear lies. 

For example, on December 16, there were 29 new cases reported in Tianjin City (a city of 13.9 million people), 54 in Shandong Province (which has population of 102 million), 42 in Henan Province (with a population of 99 million), and none in Hebei Province (with a population of 75 million). 

That is why people find these numbers ridiculous. “How come there are only five cases?” asked a Liaoning Province resident after hearing there were only 5 new daily cases. “Could these five people be representatives of all those infected?” 

Another netizen wrote, “This is surely a joke. If there is no news, no one needs to make it up—the weather forecast is enough.” 

“We know they are lying, they know they are lying, they know we know they are lying, we know they know we know they are lying, but they are still lying,” another person wrote quoting Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a novelist well known for exposing the Soviet Communist Party’s lies. 

A Way Out

Mr. Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Dafa, wrote an article on March 19, 2020, explaining how to stay safe in the pandemic. 

“Pandemics and plagues are part of a divine plan and inevitable in the course of history. When people become immoral they generate karma, become sick, and experience disastrous things. In such circumstances, people who do not believe in the divine then resort to various “measures” [or “cuo-shi” in Chinese] to try to deal with things. But the fact that “cuo-shi” is a homophone for another term in Chinese, which means “mistaken approach,” is telling.” (Stay Rational)

Having implemented different lockdown measures, many countries came to see that lockdowns were a mistaken approach to deal with the virus. They then turned to living with the virus. The CCP, however, criticized other countries for not following “science” and kept enforcing its zero-COVID policy in order to boast its superiority over other political systems. When the policy tanked the economy and triggered protests, the CCP finally had no choice but ditch the policy. With no exit plan, however, the people in China are still suffering due to surging cases and lack of medical resources.

In the same article, Mr. Li also revealed, “But a pandemic like the current Chinese Communist Virus (or “Wuhan Virus”) comes with a purpose behind it, and it has targets. It is here to weed out members of the Party and those who have sided with it.” (Stay Rational)

The pandemic is unfortunate, but it gave the Chinese people and the rest of the world an opportunity to see the CCP’s true colors. From the Great Leap Forward to the Great Famine, from the Cultural Revolution to the Tiananmen Square Massacre and the persecution of Falun Gong, the regime has never stopped harming its people with brutality and lies as it erases traditional values. 

This is because the core ideology of the CCP is falsehoods, evilness, and class struggle. To enforce lockdowns or not is not important for the CCP as long as the regime can maintain its control of the people and sustain its totalitarian rule. As Mr. Li pointed out, the pandemic targets CCP members and those who sided with it. The fundamental solution is to get rid of the CCP and stop communism’s global expansion, so that society can get back on track and regain blessings.