In the first public comments since China relaxed restrictions to combat the Covid, at the beginning of the month, the leader Xi Jinping this Monday (26) called on the country’s authorities to take measures to “efficiently protect” the lives of his compatriots in the face of the advance of the disease.
“We should launch a patriotic health campaign in a more refined way”, to strengthen “the prevention and control” of the pandemic and “effectively protect the life, safety and health of the population”, said the Chinese leader, in a statement quoted by the broadcaster. state CCTV.
Current Premier Li Keqiang, also mentioned by state media, this time by the Xinhua news agency, also stressed that all levels of government must step up their efforts to ensure that demands for treatment and medical supplies are met.
Three years after the emergence of the first cases of Covid in the city of Wuhan, in the central region of the country, the Asian giant is trying to contain an explosive rise in the number of people infected by the virus.
Many hospitals are full, and pharmacies suffer from a lack of medicine. Several crematoriums have indicated to the AFP news agency that they have received a high number of corpses. Guangzhou, with 19 million inhabitants, had announced that it would postpone its funeral ceremonies until after January 10 due to a “significant increase in demands” – the justification was later withdrawn from the note.
Still, many packed the subways in Beijing and Shanghai, in an atmosphere that contrasts with the scene in the metropolis in April and May, when heavy restrictions were imposed. “I’m prepared to live with the pandemic,” said resident Lin Zixin, 25. “Lockdowns are not a long-term solution.”
An annual Christmas market in the Bund, Shanghai’s commercial district, welcomed many visitors over the weekend, as did crowds at the city’s Disneyland and Universal Studios park in the Chinese capital. The number of trips to tourist sites in Guangzhou has grown by 132% since last weekend, according to the local newspaper The 21st Century Business Herald. “Now everyone is back to their normal routine,” said a 29-year-old Beijing resident surnamed Han.
So far, China has only officially recognized six deaths from Covid since the lifting of restrictions. But, according to many experts, this balance would be much lower than the actual number of deaths, in a country where a considerable part of the elderly are not vaccinated against the coronavirus.
On Sunday (25), the country’s National Health Commission announced that it will no longer disclose daily data on cases and deaths from Covid, as it has done since the beginning of 2020. decision. Ten days earlier, however, he declared that tracking cases had become practically impossible since the easing of control measures, because, by enacting the end of the mandatory PCR tests and permission for home quarantine, the Chinese began to carry out tests at home , and most of them do not communicate the results to the authorities.
The commission added that the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will publish information about the outbreak, but did not specify which data will be released and how often. Also the CDC had announced that it would not publish daily reports on the coronavirus at the beginning of the month.
Another controversy that put official data in check was a new methodology imposed by the regime. Only deaths resulting from pneumonia or respiratory failure caused by the coronavirus are counted as deaths related to the disease. Since the suspension of the Covid-zero policy, authorities have only attributed six deaths to the virus, and the WHO (World Health Organization) claims to have received no data on new hospitalizations as of that date.
Faced with the data blackout, some provinces began to release their own statistics. This is the case of the province of Zhejiang, about 200 km from Shanghai, which has about 65 million inhabitants.
According to the authorities, daily contagions now exceed one million, and the number of patients visiting clinics has increased 14 times since last week. Admission requests at the emergency center in the local capital, Hangzhou, more than tripled from last year’s average.
The change in the course of the controversial Covid-zero policy, which included practices such as large-scale confinements and the systematic hospitalization of infected people, comes in the wake of a series of popular mobilizations carried out in the country’s main cities and universities at the end of November.
The protests were the strongest public challenge to Xi’s leadership and came about a month after he was crowned with an unprecedented third term at the helm of the regime. They were also part of the slowdown of the Chinese economy, with the country registering the biggest drop in the flow of trade in two and a half years.
With a wealth of experience honed over 4+ years in journalism, I bring a seasoned voice to the world of news. Currently, I work as a freelance writer and editor, always seeking new opportunities to tell compelling stories in the field of world news.
