Beijing: China, a nation which has been witnessing a spike in cases since it shifted from the Zero COVID policy, has recorded almost 60,000 COVID-related deaths between Dec 8 and Jan 12, media reports said on Saturday.

It is the first time China has released a death toll since its abrupt pivot away from the zero-Covid policy last month, South China Morning Post reported.

Jiao Yahui, director of the National Health Commission’s medical affairs department, said medical institutes had recorded 5,503 deaths as a result of respiratory failure triggered by Covid infection and 54,435 deaths of people infected with Covid-19 but with underlying conditions, such as cancer or cardiovascular diseases, the newspaper reported.

The average age of those who died was 80.3, and 90 per cent of fatalities were aged 65 or over, the newspaper reported.

China’s National Health Commission announced last month that only Covid-19 patients who die from respiratory failure will be counted towards the official death toll.

Although virus sequencing is vital to detect and track new variants in the COVID-19 pandemic, sharing this information must be stepped up globally, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday in Geneva.

“Since the peak of the Omicron wave, the number of sequences being shared has dropped by more than 90 per cent, and the number of countries sharing sequences has fallen by a third,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, speaking during his latest media briefing. 

The WHO chief recalled that the first sequence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, was shared with the world three years ago, which enabled the development of tests and vaccines against the disease.

“We urge all countries now experiencing intense transmission to increase sequencing, and to share those sequences,” he said.