China reports nearly 60,000 COVID deaths since lifting restrictions

China said Saturday that it had recorded nearly 60,000 fatalities linked to the coronavirus in the month since the country lifted its strict "zero-COVID" policy, accelerating an outbreak that is believed to have infected millions of people. The disclosure was the first time China has provided an official measure of the COVID wave now sweeping the country, and represents a huge spike in the official death toll. Until Saturday, China had reported a total of just 5,241 COVID deaths since the pandemic began in the city of Wuhan in late 2019. That measure was narrowly defined as deaths from pneumonia…