Senior Academicians from Chinese Academy of Sciences and Engineering Die Amid COVID Wave

Emergency health workers transport a patient to a fever clinic at a hospital amid the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing on Dec. 21, 2022. Jade Gao/AFP via Getty Images

Reports of the death of prominent members of the prestigious Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE) took a jump in December when the COVID wave swept through the country. CAS and CAE are the highest-ranked science and engineering organizations under the Chinese regime.

Based on publicly available obituaries, nine academicians have died since Dec. 21, with five dying on Dec. 23. The obituaries are suspiciously vague when describing the causes of death. Most of them simply “died of incurable illness.”