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Shanghai Reports First COVID-19 Deaths Since Beginning of Lockdown

The city’s actual recent mortality rate due to the virus may be far higher, according to several reports.

Shanghai officials reported the first deaths attributed to an overwhelming wave of new coronavirus infections so fierce that it triggered the first lockdown of the pandemic for the city of 25 million people late last month. Three patients, all aged between 89 and 91, died on Sunday, according to the Shanghai Health Commission. All three had underlying health conditions, the municipal government said. Aside from a pair of deaths reported in Jilin province in March, Sunday’s deaths mark the first COVID-19 fatalities officially reported by China in more than a year, according to Bloomberg News. But widespread infection rates and the general difficulty of determining cause of death have provoked suspicion that the city may be underreporting its COVID-19 mortality rate, the BBC has said. On March 31, The Wall Street Journal reported that one elderly care facility in Shanghai had had 20 residents die in recent weeks, although it was unknown whether they’d died of COVID-19. More than 22,000 new cases were reported in Shanghai on Sunday.