Photo used for illustrative purpose.

In early December, Beijing abruptly dismantled its strict three-year anti-virus regime of frequent testing, travel curbs and mass lockdowns after widespread protests in late November, and cases have surged since then across the nation of 1.4 billion.

A health official said on Saturday that COVID-19 fever and emergency hospitalisations had peaked and the number of hospitalised patients was continuing to decline.

Between Dec.8 and Jan.12, the number of COVID-related deaths in Chinese hospitals totalled 59,938, Jiao Yahui, head of the Bureau of Medical Administration under the National Health Commission (NHC), told a media briefing.

Of those fatalities, 5,503 were caused by respiratory failure due to COVID and the remainder resulted from a combination of COVID-19 and other diseases, she said.

While international health experts have predicted at least 1 million Covid-related deaths this year, China had previously reported just over 5,000 deaths since the pandemic began, one of the lowest death rates in the world.

Authorities had been reporting five or fewer deaths a day over the past month - figures inconsistent with long queues seen at funeral homes and body bags seen leaving crowded hospitals.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said this week that China was heavily under-reporting deaths from COVID-19, although it was now providing more information on its outbreak. The UN agency did not immediately comment on Saturday.

China, which last reported daily COVID-19 death figures on Monday, has repeatedly defended the veracity of its data on the disease.

On Saturday, Jiao said China divides COVID-related deaths between those from respiratory failure due to coronavirus infection and those from underlying disease combined with coronavirus infection.

"The standard is basically in line with those adopted by the World Health Organisation and other major countries," she said.

Last month, a Chinese health expert at a government news conference said only deaths caused by pneumonia and respiratory failure after contracting Covid would be classified as Covid deaths. Heart attacks or cardiovascular disease causing the death of infected people would not get that classification.

Yanzhong Huang, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, said the tenfold increase in deaths announced on Saturday suggests that China's Covid policy reversal "is indeed associated with" a sharp rise in severe cases and deaths, especially among older people.

Reuters