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Speaker 1: My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda

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Speaker 1: Bungelung Calcuttin woman from Gadighl country. The Daily oz acknowledges

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Speaker 1: that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the

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Speaker 1: Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres

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Speaker 1: Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the

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Speaker 1: first peoples of these countries, both past and present.

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Speaker 2: Good morning and welcome to the Daily os It is Tuesday,

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Speaker 2: the seventeenth of January. I'm Sam, I'm Czara. Today we're

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Speaker 2: going to be talking about China and COVID. Zara, tell

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Speaker 2: me what's going on.

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Speaker 3: China's had almost sixty thousand COVID related deaths in the

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Speaker 3: last month. That is according to new data that was

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Speaker 3: released by health visuals in the country. Up until now,

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Speaker 3: the nation was claiming to have had just over five

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Speaker 3: thousand COVID deaths since the whole pandemic began, But stories

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Speaker 3: of overcrowded hospitals and full morgues led to questions from

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Speaker 3: the well.

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Speaker 4: The brunie can't go fast enough. Milk behind me has

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Speaker 4: been billowing constantly from all the bodies that are burning,

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Speaker 4: and these creates over here, they're all full of yellow

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Speaker 4: body bags.

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Speaker 3: So what's contributed to this huge rise? A new data set,

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Speaker 3: or changes in the way the nation has been handling

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Speaker 3: the disease, or a combination of both. We'll get to

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Speaker 3: that in the deep dive, but first the headlines.

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Speaker 2: The Ukrainian Ambassador to Australia has echoed President Voladimir Zelenski's

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Speaker 2: call for more foreign military aid to be sent to Ukraine.

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Speaker 2: This comes after a deadly Russian missile strike over the weekend.

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Speaker 2: While were You the rating Ukraine's gratitude to Australia, the

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Speaker 2: ambassador told the ABC that different armor and tanks were

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Speaker 2: needed to help quote kick Russians out of Ukraine.

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Speaker 3: New research from Oxfam Australia has found that the gap

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Speaker 3: between Australia's wealthiest one percent and the least wealthy has

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Speaker 3: in fact widened. In the last The top one percent

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Speaker 3: have saved one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a minute.

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Speaker 3: That's right, a minute for ten years straight. The results

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Speaker 3: are similar worldwide, with extreme wealth and extreme poverty both

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Speaker 3: having increased in twenty twenty two for the first time

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Speaker 3: in twenty five years.

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Speaker 2: Some really shocking news from here. At the Australian Open yesterday,

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Speaker 2: Nick Kurios won't be defending his Australian Open doubles crown

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Speaker 2: this year after the Australian pulled out of the tournament

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Speaker 2: due to injury. Kurios took to the court on Friday

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Speaker 2: night for an exhibition match against Novak Djokovic, but yesterday

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Speaker 2: cited knee injuries for the reason of his withdrawal.

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Speaker 3: And the good news, A runner who completed one hundred

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Speaker 3: and fifty consecutive marathons to raise funds for Australia's endangered

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Speaker 3: wildlife has finished her crusade in Melbourne yesterday. The Kanna

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Speaker 3: Murray Butler began the journey at the Northern Tip of

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Speaker 3: Australia in August and she has broken the previous women's

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Speaker 3: Guinness World record of one hundred and six consecutive marathons

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Speaker 3: during this can pain okay, so Over the weekend, Chinese

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Speaker 3: health officials dropped some pretty major data. They said that

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Speaker 3: there had been nearly sixty thousand COVID related deaths since

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Speaker 3: early December and so although experts say the figure is

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Speaker 3: likely higher than that, as it is with many other nations,

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Speaker 3: this number is particularly important because it's the first indication

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Speaker 3: we've had of what's actually going on in the country

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Speaker 3: since they departed from their zero COVID policy in December.

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Speaker 2: When we last spoke about China's zero COVID policy on

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Speaker 2: the podcast, we were talking about protests in China that

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Speaker 2: were in response to lockdowns. Take me through what's happened

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Speaker 2: in the country since.

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Speaker 3: Then, Yes, so a fair bit. At that point in

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Speaker 3: late November when we were chatting about this, people were

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Speaker 3: taking to the streets and they were there to oppose

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Speaker 3: a series of snap lockdowns that all formed part of

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Speaker 3: the nation's zero COVID policy. There's a link to that

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Speaker 3: episode in the show notes if you want to go

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Speaker 3: back and listen. But these protests were especially newsworthy at

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Speaker 3: the time because of where they were happening in China,

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Speaker 3: which is a state that's normally under such tight political control.

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Speaker 3: We spoke about how the zero COVID policy and the

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Speaker 3: strict lockdowns that had come with it were seen and

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Speaker 3: how they were viewed in the country and also internationally

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Speaker 3: as one of the defining policies of President Chi Jinping's rule.

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Speaker 3: Not long after those protests started, so it was about

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Speaker 3: the beginning of December, China began lifting the strictest of

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Speaker 3: its COVID policies and thus began this departure from zero

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Speaker 3: COVID policy.

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Speaker 2: So take me through the steps of that. What did

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Speaker 2: those changes actually look like.

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Speaker 3: I mean, at a very high level, if you move

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Speaker 3: away from zero COVID, which as the name explains, means

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Speaker 3: that there are no COVID cases in the community. If

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Speaker 3: you move away from that, there was this general acceptance

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Speaker 3: that COVID would be circulating in the community and that

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Speaker 3: any time there was a case or an outbreak, there

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Speaker 3: wouldn't be snap lockdowns to actually stop that. So that's

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Speaker 3: what happened on a high level. Materially, it meant that

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Speaker 3: there was a shift to home quarantine instead of being

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Speaker 3: put in a facility. There was an end to mandatory

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Speaker 3: PCR testing, and there were also reduced restrictions on travel.

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Speaker 3: Some residents celebrated the changes, but then on the flip side,

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Speaker 3: there were also those that were worried about a sudden

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Speaker 3: surge in the virus. Official public messaging for so long,

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Speaker 3: I mean, we're three years into this pandemic, it had

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Speaker 3: emphasized the dangers of COVID and now, when they moved

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Speaker 3: away from zero COVID, suddenly there was this shift to

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Speaker 3: language about it being more mild in nature, and so

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Speaker 3: of course that was really difficult for a lot of

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Speaker 3: people to get their heads around. And as compulsory testing ended,

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Speaker 3: it meant that the country experienced a sharp drop in

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Speaker 3: officially reported cases, which brings us back to this issue

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Speaker 3: of reporting of what we actually know out of China

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Speaker 3: about their COVID fatalities.

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Speaker 2: So in that context, what do we know about the

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Speaker 2: current situation in China.

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Speaker 3: Well, logically, with the end of the zero COVID policy,

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Speaker 3: it was expected that COVID cases and likely fatalities would rise,

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Speaker 3: but the number we got from a press conference this

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Speaker 3: past weekend was dramatically higher. Up until now, China was

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Speaker 3: reporting just over five thousand COVID deaths since the pandemic began,

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Speaker 3: which according to Reuters is actually one of the lowest

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Speaker 3: death rates in the world. That five thousand number included

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Speaker 3: a very strict definition of what a COVID death was,

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Speaker 3: and that was a death that was caused by pneumonia

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Speaker 3: or respiratory failure. Now, with this new sixty thousand figure,

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Speaker 3: that definition has been expanded to actually include people who

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Speaker 3: died from other underlying conditions while also having COVID. So

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Speaker 3: of the total sixty thousand deaths, five and a half

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Speaker 3: thousand were from respiratory failure and the rest had other

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Speaker 3: underlying conditions as well as COVID.

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Speaker 2: And why do you think health officials in China released

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Speaker 2: this information now?

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Speaker 3: So since China ended its strict zero COVID policy that

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Speaker 3: was on the seventh of December, the country's been facing

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Speaker 3: a lot of international pressure to release this sort of

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Speaker 3: information to the rest of the world. It came as

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Speaker 3: we heard reports of overcrowded hospitals and morgus in the country.

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Speaker 1: Now to China where the hospital systems coming onto an

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Speaker 1: increasing strain as COVID spreads quickly.

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Speaker 4: Again, the smoke behind me, it's been billowing constantly from

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Speaker 4: all the bodies that are burning, and these creates over here,

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Speaker 4: they're all full of yellow body bags.

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Speaker 3: With China reopening its borders to the rest of the world,

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Speaker 3: some countries expressed concern and this was very quickly acted upon,

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Speaker 3: so Japan and South Korea they imposed travel curbs and

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Speaker 3: Chinese visitors and then over the Christmas break here in Australia,

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Speaker 3: the federal government announced testing requirements for travelers coming from China.

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Speaker 3: At the time, the Chinese government said that these new

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Speaker 3: restrictions were discriminatory and politically manipulative, but the World Health

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Speaker 3: Organization was critical of the Chinese government. The who's Director

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Speaker 3: General said he was concerned about the risk to life

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Speaker 3: in China and that with circulation in China so high,

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Speaker 3: in comprehensive data not forthcoming, it was understandable that some

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Speaker 3: countries were taking steps that they believed would protect their citizens.

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Speaker 3: At that point that the WHO calls on the Chinese

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Speaker 3: government to provide more rapid, regular and reliable data on

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Speaker 3: COVID numbers and this latest outbreak.

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Speaker 2: And so that data came out over the weekend. Did

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Speaker 2: that satisfy the who's concerns.

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Speaker 1: Well.

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Speaker 3: They welcomed the public release of new data and noted

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Speaker 3: efforts by Chinese authorities to scale up care for its population.

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Speaker 3: But still there are a few areas that the WHO

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Speaker 3: requested more information, and that was including a more detailed

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Speaker 3: breakdown of data by province, as well as information on

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Speaker 3: the specific subvariants that are currently circulating within the country.

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Speaker 3: The Director General also reiterated the importance of China's deeper

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Speaker 3: cooperation and transparency.

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Speaker 2: Thank you for joining us on the Daily Ods today.

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Speaker 2: If you enjoyed this podcast, why don't you send it

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Speaker 2: to a friend or hit subscribe so there's a TDA

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Speaker 2: episode waiting for you every morning. We'll be back again tomorrow.

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Speaker 2: Until then, have a great Tuesday.

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Speaker 3: I me