Over the years, China has earned a reputation for secrecy and manipulation of information. Today, another piece of news is following in the same vein. At a private hospital in Beijing, during a time when Covid-19 is still a new variant spreading like wildfire, a physician in the emergency department noticed a printed notice that asked them to not list respiratory failure due to Covid-19 as the cause of death for a patient. It instead asked them to list an underlying health condition as the main cause of death. In addition, if doctors believed that the death had been caused due to Covid-19, they were asked to report to their superiors who would then arrange consultations before concluding the cause of death.
By doing this, is China trying to hide the true cause of death from its citizens and the world. This could be seen as a form of censorship, a dangerous one at that. People have the right to know the truth and the full extent of the outbreak. Anything that manipulates and withholds information could be catastrophic and contribute to further misinformation. Moreover, this has implications beyond just health. It could irreparably damage the relationship between citizens, who have the right to know, and the government. If a government loses the trust of its citizens, it could be a recipe for disaster and fuel societal fragmentation, unrest, and chaos.
