The Chinese Communist Party’s National Disease Control and Prevention Administration announced on Aug. 13 that 522,000 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 were recorded nationwide in July, 6.61 times the 79,000 recorded in June. China’s CDC said the country is “currently at the peak plateau phase of this fluctuation in the epidemic.”
On Aug. 13, China’s CDC released its “Nationwide COVID-19 Infection Situation (July 2026)” report. It said 522,000 new confirmed cases were reported nationwide in July, including 487 severe cases and one death, with reported cases showing a fluctuating upward trend.
From the 27th to the 31st week of 2026, the COVID-19 positivity rate among influenza-like cases at outpatient and emergency departments rose continuously, at 8.2 percent, 11.2 percent, 15.3 percent, 19.5 percent and 21.2 percent. A total of 11,204 valid COVID-19 genome sequences from domestic cases were submitted nationwide, all of them Omicron variants, with NB.1.8.1 and its sublineages the main strains in circulation.
The CDC said this rise still amounts to a cyclical fluctuation, of an intensity comparable to the previous two years, and that the upward trend has clearly slowed: the country is “currently at the peak plateau phase of this fluctuation in the epidemic.”
For June, the CDC had reported 79,000 new confirmed cases, among them 130 severe cases and one death, with reported case numbers trending upward overall. Compared with June, new confirmed cases in July skyrocketed roughly 6.61 times. Severe cases also rose sharply in July to 487, which was 3.75 times the June figure of 130. In the first five months of this year, by contrast, new COVID-19 cases on the mainland had largely held at around 20,000 a month. It is worth noting that the CCP habitually conceals the truth about disasters, and outside observers widely doubt the data it publishes.
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Questions mount over China’s reported COVID death toll
On Aug. 13 the CDC also released its Overview of the Nationwide Infectious Disease Situation for July. A total of 820,873 cases of Class B infectious diseases and 2,104 deaths were reported. The five diseases with the highest number of reported cases were, in order, COVID-19 infection, viral hepatitis, tuberculosis, syphilis and gonorrhea, together making up 97.5 percent of all reported Class B cases.
The same official bulletin reported 2,104 deaths from Class B infectious diseases in July. Although COVID-19 accounted for 521,751 cases—the highest number among the diseases listed—the official table attributed just one death to COVID-19. By comparison, it recorded 1,526 deaths associated with AIDS, 284 from viral hepatitis, 190 from tuberculosis, and dozens from other Class B infectious diseases. The figures have drawn scrutiny over the unusually low number of deaths officially attributed to COVID-19 despite the sharp rise in reported infections.
Mainland internet users had already challenged the CCP over concealing the outbreak and falsifying data, saying hospitals simply will not test for COVID. Douyin users in Shanghai, Guangdong, Hubei and elsewhere said: “The hospital doesn’t even test for COVID anymore, they only tested me for influenza A and B, drew a tube of blood, and said it was a viral infection.” “They said they don’t test, and then said even if they did test there’s no medicine to take. They only test for flu A and B.” “Nobody tests now, the confirmed figures are just the tip of the iceberg, it feels like a lot of people around me have caught it.” “The whole country has COVID.”
Hu Bijie, director of the infectious diseases department at Zhongshan Hospital affiliated with Fudan University, told China Newsweek recently that this wave of COVID is still on the rise. By his observation, over the past month the number of COVID patients seen at his hospital’s fever clinic has gone from a few a day to several dozen, and COVID infections among inpatients have also increased.
Repeated infections
A Guangzhou resident surnamed Feng told Radio Free Asia recently that fever clinics at local hospitals are packed, and that he has heard many friends mention that they or their family members have been infected again. He said: “Some friends say they’ve tested positive, and another friend said his whole family has a cold, which I suspect means they were positive. Some people are said to have died this year too, but it isn’t clear exactly where, and I suspect news of specific deaths is being blocked.”
The CDC’s July figures for COVID-19 (the CCP virus) drew a stream of comments from mainland internet users.
Many poured out their painful symptoms in the comment section: “Two days of fever, headache, blocked nose. Those symptoms went away a week ago, and now I’ve had a dry cough for nearly half a month!” “I had a fever, aching all over.” “Half the people at our company are positive (Jiangsu).” Others were skeptical: “Where does this data come from?”
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