Chinese authorities estimate that around 250 million people, or 18% of the population, were infected with Covid-19 in the first 20 days of December, as Beijing abruptly dismantled restrictions that had contained the disease for nearly of three years.
The estimates – including 37 million people, or 2.6% of the population, who were infected on Tuesday alone – were revealed by Sun Yang, deputy director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention during a health briefing on Wednesday, two people familiar with the matter said.
Sun said the rate of covidThe spread of the coronavirus in the country continues to increase and it is estimated that more than half of the people in Beijing and Sichuan are already infected, people briefed on the meeting said.
The explosion in cases followed Beijing’s decision this month to abandon its zero-Covid policy, which has kept the virus at bay through mass testing, mandatory quarantine and draconian lockdowns.
Sun’s figures, which were provided in a closed-door meeting, contrast with data released by the National Health Commission, which reported 62,592 symptomatic Covid cases during the same period. Last week, China she has publicly stopped trying to tally the total number infections after authorities reduced Covid testing.
The lack of official information released has led Washington and the World Health Organization to push Beijing to be more transparent about the number of cases, the severity of the disease, hospital admissions figures and other statistics. on health that have been widely disseminated by other countries.
In ChinaIn the capital and other cities, the wave of Covid infections has overwhelmed hospitals with an influx of elderly, bedridden patients and left emergency rooms and intensive care units with few beds available.
However, the country has proceeded to abandon the zero-Covid policy as the medical toll increases. Hong Kong chief executive John Lee announced on Saturday that long-awaited quarantine-free travel between the city and mainland China would resume as early as mid-January.
“The central government has agreed to fully reopen the borders in a gradual and orderly manner,” Lee told reporters after returning from a four-day trip to Beijing, where he met with President Xi Jinping. Families separated for almost three years because of the pandemic can be reunited. . .[and]Hong Kong’s economy can be strengthened.
Chambers of commerce and industry leaders in the financial hub have been calling for a full reopening of borders for months, with restrictions on movement hampering the territory’s economy, which is set to suffer a 3.2% annual contraction this year .
The official NHC account of Wednesday’s event provided few details about what the country’s top health officials discussed.
But at the meeting, Ma Xiaowei, director of the NHC, asked hospitals to triage overwhelmed emergency rooms and transfer patients to inpatient wards, one of the people who attended the meeting said. event. He also urged medium and large hospitals to take in more patients with severe symptoms and promised that regulators would not hold them responsible for rising death rates.
Meanwhile, the estimate of 250 million cases has raised new doubts about the accuracy of official Covid statistics and how authorities are tallying deaths from the disease.
The NHC reported just 4,103 new local cases on Saturday for the previous day, with no Covid-related deaths for a second straight day. Hong Kong, on the other hand, reported 20,460 new local cases on Saturday in the past 24 hours.
China has officially reported only eight deaths since December 1. Senior health officials said this week they had restricts the definition of what constitutes a Covid death, in a move that has reduced public fatalities.
However, crematoriums in the Chinese capital are struggling to manage a wave of corpses, and bodies were piling up in hospitals. visited by the Financial Times in the last days.
Several models, including one funded in part by China’s CDC, predicted that the country could suffer up to 1mn of Covid deaths when it reopens.
The National Health Commission did not respond to a request for comment.
Additional reporting by Chan Ho-him in Hong Kong
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