China’s authorities have issued notices indicating concern over spring outbreaks of respiratory illness after a winter of what local residents have described as elevated levels of severe respiratory infections.
In its latest notice, titled “Preventing and Controlling Key Infectious Diseases Such as COVID-19 Infection in the Spring of 2025” and issued on Feb. 27, the Chinese regime’s National Administration of Disease Control and Prevention ordered all levels of disease control agencies nationwide to monitor the multiple viruses that are spreading in the country to prevent “spring” outbreaks.
The viruses highlighted in the notice include influenza, COVID-19, dengue fever, norovirus, monkeypox, bird flu, and other emerging infectious diseases.
The notice warned of “the dynamics of pathogen mutations” and called on officials to “strengthen the genetic testing for various respiratory infectious disease pathogens.”
The notice emphasized that the agencies should “closely monitor and dynamically assess the risk of influenza virus transmission between animals, and from animals to humans.”
In another notice issued on March 4, the administration reported that from Feb. 26 to Feb. 28, its deputy director, Xia Gang, went to Guangdong Province in southern China “to investigate dengue fever prevention and control work.”
But dengue fever isn’t the real focus of the investigation, according to Sean Lin, assistant professor in the Biomedical Science Department at Fei Tian College and former U.S. army microbiologist.
He told the Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times on March 7 that dengue fever will start to spread after May, with the peak in the summer, because it is a disease spread by mosquitoes.
“The authorities are using dengue fever as a cover now, and what they really want to investigate is avian influenza in Guangdong and human infections with avian influenza,” Lin said.
“Jiangmen City in Guangdong has previously banned the sale of live poultry, but other major cities in Guangdong have not yet taken corresponding measures, which is rather worrying. I think the central government also wants to know the actual situation.”
Lin said that one reason that the regime issued the notice is that COVID-19 infections had peaks in the spring of 2023 and 2024 in China.
“In spring, the temperature and humidity will rise, which will help the virus survive longer in the environment, so it will be conducive to the faster spread of the virus,” he said.
“There are other respiratory infectious diseases now, but what is most worrying is that highly pathogenic avian influenza virus strains are also mixed in, and over time they are becoming more adapted to spreading among the human population, and eventually becoming sustainable human-to-human transmission.”
Lin said he has noticed that prevention and control exercises have begun targeting human infections of avian influenza in many parts of China.
On Feb. 28, official state media outlet Huaihua in Hunan Province reported that Huaihua City held the 2025 Health Emergency Capacity Improvement and Respiratory Infectious Disease Prevention and Control Technology Training Course from Feb. 23 to Feb. 25. More than 140 staffers from the city and county CDCs participated in the training to respond to respiratory infectious diseases such as influenza, COVID-19, and human infections of bird flu.
A resident of Shanxi Province also recently told the Chinese edition of The Epoch Times that on Feb. 14, there were 20 children in the local community who fell ill and that 14 of them died. Some of the symptoms were vomiting and diarrhea. The military’s epidemic prevention personnel took over the community and did not allow outsiders to enter.
Someone who was recently told by a doctor that a loved one died of bird flu told The Epoch Times that the doctor also said the H5N1 diagnosis was not allowed to be revealed to the public.
Jonathan Liu, a professor at Canada Public College and director of Liu’s Wisdom Healing Centre, told The Epoch Times on March 8 that the Chinese regime “has indeed been using some other viruses to cover up the true scale of the COVID-19 outbreaks.”
“From the development of the current outbreaks, we can see that the COVID-19 has caused human immune dysfunction and many dormant or inactive viruses to become active, so there are many types of viruses spreading,” Liu said.
“Especially the human infections of avian influenza, this needs to be taken seriously.”
Liu said that COVID-19 and other related viruses have already shown “an outbreak trend in mainland China” and that the Chinese regime has continued to conceal the real situation. He noted that the latest COVID-19 pandemic information released by the World Health Organization is from 2024 to January 2025 and that China did not report any data.
Many Deaths
In late February, Zhou Yi, a resident of Nanyang city in Henan Province using a pseudonym for safety concerns, told the Chinese edition of The Epoch Times that the number of deaths in the region has increased significantly because of respiratory infections or related complications.“From the end of November last year to now, 46 of my friends and family members have passed away. The deceased are in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, and more are in their 40s. They were vaccinated, with more than three shots, and the main cause of death is myocardial infarction,” he said.
“Those of us who have received the COVID-19 vaccine have developed various conditions, and there are deaths reported all the time. Four of my classmates died recently, all 42 years old.”
Zhou said that because there have been so many deaths, there are long lines at local funeral homes.
Yang, another resident of Nanyang who gave only his surname out of safety concerns, told The Epoch Times that since the Chinese New Year, which fell on Jan. 29, many people around him have had flu symptoms and developed serious illness, such as white lung, pneumonia, myocarditis, and encephalitis.
“There are more viruses spreading this year, and everyone—regardless of age—has been infected, and the symptoms are basically the same as those of the COVID-19,” he said.
“Now here, among my friends, colleagues, and people in my social circle, there are several deaths every month. Older ones are in their 60s and 70s, the younger ones are between 30 and 50 years old.”
In late February, Li, a food store owner in Xuchang in Henan Province, told The Epoch Times that a new wave of infections broke out in the area around the Chinese New Year and that many families were infected, with some developing severe illnesses such as pneumonia and myocarditis.
“Now, there are so many people in the hospital and funeral homes. In the rural areas when people die, a small suona band is invited to perform at their funerals. Now, the bands are too busy to handle all the funerals, and some families can’t find a band to hire,” he said.
“People who buy things from my stores told me that so many people have died in their villages. There are deaths every day, and not just one or two deaths. And the hospitals have blocked such information.”
