How Many Died Because Of Covid In China?

 A few interesting videos on China's population. The first and second videos question how many have died from the pandemic, suggesting that hundreds of millions may have died. The first video takes note of reports coming out of China seeming showing mostly empty streets, trains, and shopping malls that should have been packed, suggesting that the populations are shrinking. The second is similar, but has more video of villages that seemingly have been abandoned.

    The third video is longer. The woman who produced that video has, in the past, argued that China's population based on birth and death statistics is actually around 800 million, not the 1.4 billion cited by the government. Now she argues that the repeated pandemics have reduced the population to between 300 and 400 million. 

    I obviously have no way of verifying any of this. I don't travel to China and have no special sources of information. Perhaps we are seeing videos that are faking the scenes of mostly empty streets or malls, showing them in the early morning when there is little traffic but claiming it to be rush hour or another busy time of day. China has for years been encouraging younger workers to return to the countryside in order to fight youth unemployment in the cities, and perhaps it has finally worked. 

    Or perhaps China's economy has tanked and people simply don't have the money to be shopping or going out to eat, and factories and businesses have shut down. I would note in this regard a two-part article from George Calhoun at Forbes entitled: "The Missing Factor In Explanations Of China’s Economic Distress: COVID - Part 1: The Cover-Up" and "The Missing Factor In Explanations Of China’s Economic Distress: COVID – Part 2: Estimating The True Death Toll." He argues that Covid was, in fact, the missing factor to explain why China's economy did not come rushing back after Covid restrictions were lifted; and it was because the death toll was much larger than official statistics (but in the millions, not hundreds of millions). He indicates that "[t]he total over four years from 2019-2022 amounts to about 1.6 million excess deaths. (2023 added another 800,000 'excess deaths' above the pre-COVID baseline.)" The 800,000 figure may, itself, also be low: the CDC published a paper in October 2023 which concluded that "SARS-CoV-2 infections caused 1.41 million deaths in China during December 2022–February 2023."

    And, finally, China has seen an outbreak of human metapneumovirus (HMPV) earlier this year, so perhaps the Chinese people were self-isolating.

VIDEO: "People are discovering the truth of COVID & China’s real population"
Lei's Real Talk (15 min).

VIDEO: "Apocalypse Begins! Hundreds of Millions Disappear in China, Massive Abandoned Villages Found" -- China Observer (17 min.)

VIDEO: "The Vanishing Billion: Exposing China’s Population Myth"
Lei's Real Talk (52 min.)