China recorded about 13,000 Covid-related deaths in hospitals between Jan. 13 and Jan. 19, the week leading up to the Chinese New Year. The celebrations begin this Sunday (22nd) and run through February 5th.
The data does not include people who died in their homes. A week ago, the country reported that from December 8 to January 12, nearly 60,000 people died in medical centers from complications related to Covid. The figures are questioned by the WHO (World Health Organization).
China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Saturday (21) that 681 hospitalized patients died of respiratory failure in the last week due to complications from Covid-19, and another 11,977 from other illnesses combined with the virus.
Airfinity, an independent consultancy, estimates that China’s daily death rate will peak at 36,000 during the Lunar New Year. In January, concern about the rise in cases due to the intense flow of travel caused a Chinese government official to publicly discourage the population from visiting elderly relatives during the celebrations.
This is the first major celebration in the country without the restrictions of the zero Covid policy, relaxed by the regime at the end of last year, after a series of protests contesting the measures. Airfinity estimates that more than 600,000 people have died from the disease since China abandoned the program.
Chinese transport authorities project that in January and February more than 2 billion trips will be made, in one of the largest annual human displacements in the world. Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Wednesday expressed concern about outbreaks in rural areas, where there are fewer health resources.
The holiday trend is for inhabitants of the country’s large metropolises to travel to their home provinces, which are often farther away, with a less equipped health system and lower vaccination rates. The immunization rate among the elderly is also a point of attention at this time.
On Thursday, senior National Health Commission official Guo Yanhong said the country had already passed the peak of cases, according to patient records in clinics and intensive care units. Days later, on Saturday, Wu Zunyou, head of epidemiology at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the country would not suffer a second wave of infections in the next three months.
“Although the large number of people traveling can promote spread to a certain extent (…), the current epidemic wave has already infected about 80% of the population,” he said on the Weibo social network.
On Saturday, residents of Wuhan, the megalopolis where the coronavirus was first detected at the end of 2019, celebrated the arrival of the Year of the Rabbit with fireworks, flowers and offerings for those killed by the virus.
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