Whistleblower: China Lost 500 Million People in 5 Years Following COVID Outbreak

A former journalist based in mainland China has released explosive allegations from an anonymous whistleblower said to be a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) official within China’s civil affairs system, claiming that more than 500 million people died in China within five years following the COVID-19 outbreak.

According to the claims, a whopping 387 million people died during the three years of pandemic lockdowns, while another 153 million died in the two years after China ended its “zero-COVID” policy. The whistleblower further alleges that a significant portion of deaths were linked not to COVID or vaccines, but to forced organ harvesting, with millions of bodies missing organs allegedly disposed of without being counted as deaths.

The allegations, which have not yet been independently verified, have nonetheless sent shockwaves through overseas Chinese communities.

RELATED: Here’s Just How Badly ‘Zero-COVID’ Has Damaged China’s Economy

Population freefall

On Jan. 25, overseas commentator and former mainland journalist Zeng Jieming disclosed on X (via the account “Xiufeng Zhenren”) that he received the whistleblower’s report on Jan. 24. Zeng stressed that he cannot verify the authenticity of the information, though parts of it align with long-held suspicions.

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The whistleblower claims China’s population never reached 1.4 billion. According to the report, China’s 2010 Sixth National Census recorded a population of 1.3397 billion, but the 2020 Seventh Census allegedly found only 1.0933 billion people, a drop of more than 200 million over ten years.

The whistleblower alleges that Xi Jinping was “deeply shocked” by the figures and ordered the results delayed and “beautified,” explaining why the 2020 census was published six months later than usual.

387 million deaths

The whistleblower states: “During the three years of the pandemic, China’s real death toll reached 387 million. After the lifting of lockdowns in December 2022, another 153 million died within two years.” They further claim: “Since the outbreak in 2020, the 530 million deaths were not all caused by COVID or vaccine side effects. Many people who died of ‘heart failure’ or ‘brain death’ were actually victims of murder within the organ-harvesting industrial chain.”

According to the whistleblower, China’s organ transplant industry, allegedly also promoted internally as a “new economic growth engine,” expanded rapidly under pandemic controls, which made tracking, detaining, and matching donors far easier.

Independent investigations by the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG) have previously documented large-scale forced organ harvesting beginning after 1999. Public records show a dramatic surge in organ transplant volumes after 2000, including liver transplants increasing roughly tenfold compared with 1999 levels. The whistleblower also alleges that the pandemic provided cover for a renewed surge in such practices.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a meditation practice rooted in the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance. Despite being peaceful in nature, the CCP has launched a brutal campaign to eradicate the practice since 1999. Thousands have since perished at the hands of Chinese police, with many adherents today still undergoing routine monitoring, arbitrary travel bans, and arrests.

Highest mortality rate

The report claims that in the first three years of the pandemic, people born in the 1980s had the highest mortality rate: “The death rate among those born in the 1980s was twice that of the ‘post-70s’ generation and even higher than that of the ‘post-50s’ generation.” The whistleblower suggests this explains the unusually high mortality observed among China’s working-age population, which has drawn international attention.

RELATED: Wave of Teen Disappearances in China Raises Alarm of Organ Harvesting

According to the whistleblower, authorities ordered in late 2024 that many deaths related to “organ donation” no longer be counted in mortality statistics. As a result, bodies missing organs were allegedly recorded as “missing persons” rather than deceased. Starting in 2025, police reportedly stopped opening cases for such bodies.

The whistleblower claims, “According to internal crematorium statistics nationwide, organ-missing bodies recorded as ‘missing persons’ reached more than 14 million in 2025 alone. This is mass murder—without any exaggeration.” They added, “If I didn’t know this truth, I could still endure salary cuts and economic collapse. But when I saw a regime calling itself a ‘people’s government’ profiting from mass murder of its own people, especially the next generation, I completely broke down.”

“If the regime is not replaced, the people will soon face extinction. China will perish,” they note.

Links to child disappearances

Zheng noted in the comments that “since the pandemic, children in domestic orphanages rarely survive to adulthood. During the Wuhan lockdown, countless families died out entirely. One family of five was reduced to a single three-year-old boy. After being sent to an orphanage, he soon disappeared, ‘used as parts.’”

Separately, a Chinese-American woman published an analysis using AI-assisted demographic modeling, concluding China’s actual population may be closer to 500 million, far below the official figure. She stated, “Yes, I predicted it would fall below 400–500 million—below 500 million.”

Meanwhile, leaked Shanghai police database records from 2022 reportedly contained 970 million individual entries, suggesting an actual population closer to one billion. China’s National Bureau of Statistics reported on Jan. 19 that China’s population stood at 1.40489 billion at the end of 2025.

However, social media across China continues to be flooded with accounts claiming empty cities, deserted villages, shuttered markets, and abandoned towns. Bloggers in Shanghai, Beijing, and Wuhan repeatedly report streets “with no people in sight,” fueling widespread skepticism toward official population data.