China is bracing for a spike in Covid-19 infections within a week, a Chinese health official said on Friday. Given this prospect, the government, even minimizing the severity of the disease and continuing not to report new deaths, foresees extra pressure on the health system.
This Thursday (22), China reported less than 4,000 new symptomatic cases of Covid across the country, and no new deaths for the third consecutive day. Authorities tightened Covid death registration criteria this week, drawing criticism from experts.
However, infections in China are likely to be more than a million a day, with more than 5,000 deaths a day, in “absolute contrast” to official figures, British health data firm Airfinity said this week.
Bloomberg News, citing a government report, reported that nearly 37 million people may have been infected with the coronavirus in a single day this week.
In all, the report published on Friday said that about 18% of the country’s population – 248 million people – were likely to have contracted the virus in the first 20 days of December.
China scrapped its Covid-zero policy a few weeks ago amid a series of widespread protests against the government’s hard line in controlling the pandemic. As a result, it is experiencing an explosion in cases, becoming the last major country to come to terms with the virus.
Strict coronavirus containment measures, put in place at the start of the pandemic, have slowed the $17 trillion economy to its lowest growth rate in nearly half a century, locking down global supply chains and trade.
Zhang Wenhong, director of the National Center for Infectious Diseases, was quoted in the Shanghai government-backed newspaper The Paper on Thursday as saying that China “is expected to reach the peak of infections within a week”.
“The spike in infection will also increase the rate of serious illness, which will have a certain impact on all of our medical resources,” he said, adding that the surge will last another month or two after that. “We must be mentally prepared that infection is inevitable.”
Chinese state-run outlet Qingdao Daily on Friday quoted a health official in the eastern city of Qingdao as saying the coronavirus was in the rapid transmission stage in the city, with 490,000 to 530,000 new infections daily, which is expected to increase the a rate of 10% in the coming days.
However, Zhang said he had visited nursing homes in Shanghai, noting that the number of elderly people with severe symptoms was low. According to an expert, half of the 25 million inhabitants of the megalopolis could become infected by the end of next week.
Experts say China could add more than a million deaths from Covid next year.
Cities, meanwhile, continue to relax the rules. Shanghai said infected people will be able to end home isolation after seven days if their symptoms significantly lessen or cease, not to mention the need to carry out more tests.
Guidance from earlier this month said they could end home isolation after testing negative on antigen and PCR tests.
China’s overall vaccination rate is above 90%, but the rate for adults who received booster shots drops to 57.9% and to 42.3% for people aged 80 and older, according to government data.
The country has nine locally developed vaccines approved for use, all considered less effective than Western-made vaccines using new mRNA technology, which are banned in the country.
Meanwhile, the Chinese government began to confiscate, this Friday, the production of medicines and coronavirus tests from some pharmaceutical companies. The reason is the supply of these items in pharmacies, which are in short supply due to the high demand in recent days caused by the explosion of Covid cases.
The idea of the confiscation is to guarantee the supply of pharmacies, according to the local press.
Some cities imposed rationing. In Zhuhai, close to Macau, for example, people can only buy six fever pills a week, and they have to identify themselves at the counter.
In Hangzhou, the local government urged residents to be rational. “Do not stockpile medicines. Leave them to people who really need them,” says a municipal statement.
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