Celebrity deaths in China fuel concerns over country’s official Covid death tally

Opera singer Chu Lanlan and actor Gong Jintang among Chinese personalities who died last month

A string of celebrity deaths in China that mostly occurred last month have fuelled concerns about the government’s official Covid-19 toll.

The deaths have come after China scrapped its stringent “zero-Covid” policy and stopped giving daily briefings about the pandemic late in December last year.

While Chinese health authorities publish a daily count of new cases, severe cases and deaths, the figures include only officially confirmed cases and use a “very narrow” definition of Covid deaths, the latter of which was pointed out by the World Health Organisation (WHO) recently.