The health authorities in China recorded the country's first deaths from COVID-19 for more than a year on Saturday, as an outbreak prompted by the omicron variant pushed cases to record highs.
Two deaths in the northeastern Jilin province brought the country's official coronavirus death toll to 4,638, according to a statement on the National Health Commission's website. Independent experts are doubtful of the accuracy of the official coronavirus infection and death figures from Beijing, which put the date of the last recorded COVID-19 death as Jan. 25, 2021.
China reported 2,157 new COVID-19 cases from community transmission on Saturday, with the majority in Jilin, bordering North Korea and Russia. The province, where case numbers make up over two-thirds of total domestic infections, has instituted a travel ban, with people needing permission from police to travel across borders.
China has continued to impose a successful, if burdensome, "zero-COVID" strategy since the initial outbreak in Wuhan. The strategy focuses on mass testing and strict lockdowns with residents banned from leaving their homes until all new cases are either found in quarantine or through contact tracing.
In practice, it meant the country has seen relatively few infections from the virus because clusters are tamped down as quickly as they're discovered. The strategy has received popular support and prevented the large numbers of deaths seen in other countries, many of which have started to forgo any kind of social distancing measures.
With China now facing its worst outbreak since late 2019, officials have vowed to double down on the zero-tolerance strategy to contain the current surge. However, China's leader Xi Jinping acknowledged for the first time the burden of the measures on Thursday, saying that China should seek "maximum effect" with "minimum cost" in controlling the virus.
Several million Chinese people are currently under lockdown rules, including in Shenzhen and parts of Shanghai, two of the country's most important economic centers. In the capital Beijing, several areas with thousands of residents have been sealed off.
China had recorded 4,636 deaths since the pandemic began in the central city of Wuhan in late 2019. It revised its death toll once in April 2020, adding in new deaths that were not initially counted as the pandemic overwhelmed the city's hospitals and other systems.
Mainland China's COVID-19 data is counted separately from that in Hong Kong, which is a special administrative region in China, and is facing a much larger outbreak with a higher death toll.
Of the new cases, 2,157 were locally transmitted, compared with 2,388 a day earlier, with 78% appearing in Jilin and others found in the southeastern province of Fujian and the southern province of Guangdong among others.
Jilin has built eight "makeshift hospitals" and two quarantine centers to stem the current upsurge. State news outlets this week broadcast footage of dozens of giant cranes assembling temporary medical facilities in Jilin, which has only around 23,000 hospital beds for some 24 million residents.
The latest flare-ups have also prompted long queues to form outside mass testing sites across China and seen tight controls at ports, raising fears of trade disruption.
The number of new asymptomatic cases, which China does not classify as confirmed cases, stood at 1,823 compared with 1,904 a day earlier. As of March 18, mainland China had confirmed 128,462 cases overall.
The first casualties in more than a year quickly caught the social media spotlight.
"Two new COVID deaths in Jilin" was a top trending topic on China's Twitter-like Weibo platform, with many expressing a desire for more information on the two victims.
"For what reason did this (the deaths) happen? (the details) should be released in a timely way," said one social media user.
Others voiced their support for China's zero-COVID policy.
"In relation to 'lying flat,' herd immunity, even opening up to allow people to exercise, this is not going to work," said another person on Weibo.