Satellite images of many Chinese cities have captured crowds at crematoriums and funeral homes amid a nationwide Covid surge after Beijing lifted strict pandemic restrictions.
A new parking lot soon opened up at a funeral home on the outskirts of Beijing. A scalper in Shanghai was selling funeral parlour cue sheets for $300 each to grieving relatives trying to buy cremation time.
Images taken by “Maxar Technologies” show a surge in activity at funeral homes in six different cities, from Beijing in the north to Nanjing in the east to Chengdu and Kunming in the southwest.
A large funeral home in Chengdu, China, has stopped offering funeral services and has allocated only two minutes before cremation for each family to say their last goodbye to their loved ones.
Social media posts also revealed long wait times and overwhelmed staff at additional facilities.
“I have been working here for six years, and it has never been this busy,” said a receptionist to a reporter at the Jiangnan Funeral Home in southwest China’s Chongqing, recounting the days right before and after Christmas when there were lengthy lineups of cars waiting to enter the facility.
“The freezer was full and all eight incinerators were operating 24/7. The phone has basically not stopped ringing,” she said. There are claims that at least four funeral homes contacted by an agency no longer allow funerals and are only offering cremation services and storage.
China’s “Zero Covid” Policy Fallbacks
After over two years of strict control over the private lives of its citizens, China recently pulled back from a draconian “Zero Covid” approach that caused widespread unrest.
China’s harsh policies have protected its population from the mass deaths seen in the West. This is a contrast often emphasised by the Chinese Communist Party to show the superiority of its restrictions.
China’s government says fewer than 40 Covid deaths in China since 7 December, when ‘Zero Covid’ restrictions aimed at eradicating the virus were suddenly lifted and the number of infections exploded
How Chinese authorities count Covid-related deaths have been a matter of debate since the pandemic began. Since December, only people who have died from respiratory failure have been included in official counts, regardless of whether they tested positive for the virus.
Chinese health officials are trying to reassure the public by citing the Omicron variant’s low fatality rate of 0.1%. Officially, according to China, just over 5,200 deaths by covid have been reported in China since the pandemic began.
But projections by international experts say the true death toll is nearing 5,000 daily, and multiple models predict Covid deaths of over 1 million in China in 2024.
