While the official data from China reports mild disease and low mortalities surrounding the latest COVID-19 outbreaks, Chinese social media is awash with reports of “white lung,” a form of pneumonia often seen in moderate to severe disease.
Anecdotal accounts of deaths after infections, and overwhelmed hospitals and morgues, have flooded Weibo and Chinese short-form video platforms.
White Lungs: a Telling Sign of Severe Disease
Pulmonary critical care specialist Dr. Joseph Varon from Baylor University expressed his perplexity at the white-lung reports on Chinese social media.
“It doesn’t make sense,” he said, referring to the official reports from China that state the dominant circulating strains as BA.5.2 and BF.7, both Omicron variants that cause mild disease….