Can the authorities figures be trusted?

Dozens of elderly patients at a hospital in Shanghai have died after contracting Covid-19, but official government figures claim no deaths in the city have been caused by the disease since 2020.

The BBC has spoken to a hospital manager and had access to correspondence sent to relatives of patients who've died during the Omicron outbreak that is sweeping through China's biggest city.

We've also had access to official documents that suggest at least 27 patients from a single hospital, who weren't vaccinated, have died from what it called "underlying health problems".

Shanghai is enforcing a mammoth lockdown as authorities try to contain a new wave of the virus. Most of the city's almost 25 million population have been ordered to stay inside for three weeks.

The BBC has previously reported evidence that authorities in Shanghai are struggling to deal with the outbreak. We spoke to a nurse and a health worker at Donghai Elderly Care Hospital who, between them, described desperate attempts to help dozens of elderly patients, some of whom have died.

We've contacted several other care homes or hospitals for the elderly since then, after social media postings suggested there was evidence of widespread infections among hundreds of patients in 12 other facilities here.

One relative of a patient at another care home in Shanghai has told us that doctors and caregivers working there had informed her that everyone in the facility had tested positive. It has capacity for around 300 patients.

www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-61117738