‘Where Have People Gone?’ High-Speed Rail In Shandong Deserted Despite Lunar New Year

High-speed rail in Shandong deserted despite Lunar New Year. North Korea locks down its capital Pyongyang as virus spreads across Chinese border. China's funeral parlors, suppliers crushed by demand amid COVID death surge. Disillusionment of old party members. Chinese first-class actor passes away due to COVID on Lunar New Year's Eve. Chinese people lose trust in CCP as it abruptly changes tone over COVID outbreak. It's all covered in today's China Truths. Where have people gone? High-speed rail in Shandong deserted despite Lunar New Year. After China lifted its zero-COVID policy in December last year, COVID is spreading everywhere without control. Chinese people typically travel back to their hometowns to celebrate the Lunar New Year with relatives, much like Westerners do for Christmas. This year, there is no festive atmosphere like the Chinese Lunar New Year in previous years at all. Instead, there were long lines of people at funeral homes and hospitals. As Chinese media Xiuwang Jixing reported on January 23rd, Shenzhen Station, once crowded with people, was deserted. The Shandong high-speed train was empty during the spring festival travel period. Many internet users questioned where people had gone. In this regard, some left some sarcastic comments. There are obviously a lot of people, and all the seats are full. There were two people standing in the aisle, one in black and the other in white. Go to the funeral. Most of them go to the hospital to accompany the elderly. China has come under fire from the World Health Organization and others for allegedly underestimating the severity of its current outbreak as reports of overcrowded hospitals and funeral homes pour in. A video uploaded on January 22nd shows patients crowding a specific hospital in China. They can only lie on the ground for emergency treatment. North Korea locks down its capital Pyongyang as virus spreads across Chinese border. Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, went under a five-day lockdown due to a rise in cases of unknown respiratory illness, according to an outlet based in South Korea. The Seoul-based NK News reported that Pyongyang residents were ordered to stay home until Sunday, January 29th, but did not specify if the respiratory illness in question was COVID-19, the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2. Residents of the capital, which enjoys a generally much higher standard of living and public services than the rest of North Korea, were also required to take their temperature several times a day. The measures taken by the totalitarian Korean Workers' Party regime have prompted Pyongyang residents to stockpile essentials in case the party imposes stricter lockdowns in future. According to NK News, it is unclear if other parts of the country have begun implementing their own anti-COVID policies. North Korea acknowledged its first outbreak of COVID-19 last year, but by the end of August had declared victory over the epidemic. But the Stalinist dictatorship's dearth of medical infrastructure and resources, plus close proximity to hard-hit China, make this claim unlikely. North Korea has never confirmed how many people have been infected with or died of COVID-19, instead tallying millions of mystery fevers. North Korea's strict communist regime keeps the country relatively isolated from the outside world—most of the trade and foreign relations are conducted with China. People familiar with the North Korean community in northeast China say that in recent weeks, many North Korean workers, traders, and even a diplomat's station in the country have succumbed to COVID-19. China's funeral parlors, suppliers crushed by demand amid COVID death surge. Never has the winter felt so suffocating for Zhou, who counted about 20 deaths among his social circles amid the massive COVID-19 wave that's Memorial tents, indicating households that have lost family members, are visible on every street in his hometown in the historic city of Yeyang in southern China's mountainous Hunan province, with a population of about 20,000 people. It's so many that it's scary, Zhou, who only provided his surname for fear of reprisals, told the Epoch Times. He said the sky seems darker than usual, without much sunlight, further heightening a sense of In the past three to four days alone, 100 to 200 people have died from the disease, he said on Jan. 23. As the virus sweeps across the country, the Chinese Communist regime has continued to conceal the true scale of the outbreak. However, widespread accounts of deaths, overwhelmed hospitals and crematoriums, and a shortage of funeral supplies point to a significant death toll. The rise in deaths has led to crematoriums around the country scrambling to dramatically expand their capacity. An Epoch Times review of 10 provinces and major cities found that more than 30 funeral homes published tenders for cremation ovens, ash urns, vans to transport bodies, and refrigerators over the past three weeks alone. Because of the sharp surge in business, we urgently need to buy two ash-sorting machines and post-processing equipment, reads one Jan. 19 notice published by Huzhou Funeral House in Zhejiang Province, located south of Shanghai. In a now-deleted Jan. 6 tender from the Shantou City government in southern Guangdong Province, a funeral parlor solicited an emergency purchase of two incinerators to be ready for use in 10 days. At about that time, a major Shanghai crematorium told the Epoch Times that they were burning 400 to 500 bodies every day, four to five times their highest workload before. As the vast Chinese population struggles under an explosive COVID-19 outbreak, authorities in Beijing have sought to superimpose a different reality. On the same day that a top Chinese state-backed university released a report indicating 900 million infections during the latest wave of COVID-19, officials at Beijing's Center for Disease Prevention and Control convened a conference celebrating three years of anti-outbreak work, during which they gave out dozens of awards, with the center's party chief, Huang Chun, declaring that the agency has lived up to their mission. Echoing the triumphant tone was Jiang Yunzhong, a Marxist scholar and party official at the elite Tsinghua University in Beijing, who said that the COVID-19 death toll in China still falls in an acceptable range. Even if a few million die, so what? He wrote on Chinese social media on January 14. China had 10 million deaths in 2021. Even if there are 5 million more deaths, it's just a 50 percent increase, a difference between two deaths versus three deaths. So far, the regime has acknowledged roughly 72,000 deaths, a number that has drawn a high degree of skepticism among experts and residents. It's a tragedy in human history, Zhou said. They see this as a funny joke and even want to boast about their accomplishments and make it a model for the world. They don't care at all what the regular people think. The unrealistic virus figures are what has changed the minds of the older generation who grew up under the regime's brainwashing and normally wouldn't countenance any discussion critical of the Chinese Communist Party, according to Zhou, who described this as a sign of the red genes breaking down. I could see they were really angry, he said. When they speak, they would ask, why are they reporting data like this? They couldn't understand. They used to excuse everything, the authorities, said, but now they have completely lost trust in them. Chinese first-class actor passes away due to COVID on Lunar New Year's Eve Zhou Erkang, a famous Chinese artist and a first-class actor, passed away on Lunar New Year's Eve, January 21, at 82. On January 24, the Shanghai Observer announced Zhou's death via Weibo. On the same day, Jiang Ping, vice chairman of China Film Group Corporation CFGC, also published Zhou Erkang's son's announcement on his WeChat account. Accordingly, the famous actor died of a lung infection caused by the new crown, COVID, at Peking University Hospital. The funeral will be held at Babaishan Funeral Home on the fourth day of the Lunar New Year. However, the funeral will be kept simple, and there will be no farewell ceremony. Zhou Erkang earned his status after starring in many movies that praised the Chinese Communist Party. His famous works are Anxious to Return, A Man Called Hero, and The Nanpu Bridge. Being ranked as a first-class actor by the party, Zhou enjoyed government subsidies issued by the State Council. Before Zhou, many other famous Chinese artists in the movie industry died during this pandemic. For example, on January 13, renowned actor Guan Zhongxiang died. Earlier, Pan Demon, another famous artist, died on December 27. All of them are members of the Chinese Communist Party. Chinese people lose trust in CCP as it abruptly changes tone over COVID outbreak. Chinese are turning to social media for advice about COVID treatment as they lose trust in health recommendations from the Chinese regime and its officials. Within weeks, the regime went from warning of the dangers of COVID to downplaying its severity, which undermined the trust of the Chinese people. Bloomberg reported that people often question the credibility of news stories and social media posts about COVID tips from the Chinese regime's health officials. The reaction against the regime's advice has become so strong that the phrase we advise experts to stop giving advice became a hot trending topic on the Chinese social media platform Weibo. As a result, some Chinese are increasingly turning to online influencers and celebrities who do not have a medical background for advice on how to treat the virus. Alton Chua, an associate professor of communications and online information at Nanyang Technological University, told Bloomberg that the pushback against the regime's advice set a dangerous precedent. If the credibility of public experts were to be repeatedly undermined in future high-profile incidents, then I think it'd be difficult to regain confidence. In response to backlash from the people, the CCP has tightened its censorship on COVID. Bloomberg reported that CCP would increase the rectification of epidemic-related online rumors. It's to prevent the content from misleading the public and causing social panic. UK-based health analytics firm Affinity estimates 125 million infections with 813,000 deaths since the CCP abandoned COVID controls according to data last updated on January 23. Wu Zunyo, the chief Chinese center for disease control and prevention epidemiologist, posted on Weibo on the eve of the Lunar New Year that 80% of China's population has been infected with COVID-19. If China's population is 1.41 billion, that percentage translates into 1.12 billion people infected. Please share your thoughts in the comments section below. We will keep reporting on the COVID surge in China, so don't forget to subscribe to our channel and turn on the notification bell to get the latest videos. And thank you for tuning in.