China is opening up and optimizing its COVID-19 measures, but three years on, the Western media's obsession with misrepresenting China's COVID situation isn't going away.

Like a jealous ex-partner, obsessed and intent on destroying the reputation of their former paramour by any means possible, many in the Western media are going to painful and nonsensical lengths to misrepresent China to their audiences.

Baseless 'evidence' of rural deaths

In a story in late January, the BBC went to northern Shanxi province, claiming Spring Festival gatherings had brought a considerable death toll to China's rural areas. We revisited the same people the BBC talked to and their testimonies showed the extent of the exaggeration and misrepresentation the Western media will go to, to mislead their audience.

Wang Peiwei lost his sister-in-law to COVID-19. He was featured in BBC's China reporter Stephen McDonell's story, but he did not expect that his words to the BBC would be twisted into meaning something else. He told Media Unlocked, the BBC reporter had asked him about how the funeral was carried out in the village. He wasn't aware that the journalist was going to use his sister-in-law's death as "evidence" of a spike in China's COVID-19 death toll.

The place where the BBC reporter picked to report from is also very interesting. Beihu village, in the northern part of Shanxi province, is famous for making funeral ornaments and has a whole industry based around them. It is a smart choice for creating a dishonest visual representation.

In the nearby Paochi village, village doctor Dong Dong Yongming also featured in the BBC report. "The BBC lied," he said, after he was shown the BBC's final report. "We sell medicine according to people's need, because we are a clinic. We do it all the time, we do not lack medicines. Like domperidone, there are 42 pills in one box, but to take a whole box for just one pill each time is wasteful, if you sell the whole box to one person." Dong told us villagers are able to get ibuprofen for free provided by the local government.

When asked about the COVID deaths in the village, Dong showed us a sheet tallying all the names of those who have died. Nine people died this winter. In the past, the average was about five. The average number deaths in the village annually are about 25-30. This year is was around 30.

In nearby Buluo village, we found that the BBC even overdubbed the villagers' responses and altered what they were actually saying in their reports. Coffins sold out quickly in January, but for reasons that differ from what the BBC claimed. Fewer coffins had been made because many workers had been infected and so were recovering at home, one coffin-maker said.