In China, 600 million people, or 40 percent of a population of 1.4 billion, have been infected with the coronavirus over the past month, while the number is likely to reach 1.1 billion in the coming weeks, some medical experts said.
There is disagreement about how to count deaths caused by covid. However, since China relaxed its Covid laws on December 7, funeral services in major cities have put a strain on facilities.
More than 80 percent of the 22 million people in Beijing and 70 percent of the 25 million people in Shanghai have so far been infected with the coronavirus, while many other major cities have passed the 50 percent mark, they said.
Zeng Guang, a Chinese epidemiologist and former chief scientist and PhD supervisor at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said that since most Chinese cities reported that 50% of their residents tested positive, it was reasonable to estimate that roughly 40% of the country’s population on average could have been infected.
While China has not announced its number of serious cases and deaths, Chinese columnists have estimated that there could be as many as 5 million serious Covid patients in the country. Airfinity, a London-based health data company, said around 9,000 die each day from Covid-19.
Cao Yunlong, a biochemist and assistant professor at Peking University, said the lethality of the Omicron strains had been underestimated in China. He said the pathogenicity of Omicron BA.1 was lower than that of Delta, but its latest variant BA.5, the most prolific in China, saw an increase in pathogenicity.
On Tuesday, China’s CDC said the country had recorded 4,804 new Covid cases and three deaths. It said last month it would only report Covid cases with symptoms.
Jiao Yahui, director of the Bureau of Medical Administration of the National Health Commission, said on December 29 that there are two main methods of counting the number of deaths from Covid in the world. She said that since 2020, China has chosen to count deaths directly caused by respiratory failure related to Covid, while some other countries have included all those who died within 28 days of testing positive for the coronavirus.
Liang Wanyan, a Chinese epidemiologist and former head of the Chinese National Health Commission’s Covid Response Expert Team, said it is very difficult to calculate the death rate of the current epidemic, which is still in a rapid period of virus transmission. Liang said an accurate figure will only be available after this epidemic is over.
Yin Li, party secretary in Beijing, on Monday called on all frontline medical staff to use all methods to reduce serious cases and deaths in the capital, but he did not disclose the figures.
Zeng said the speed of virus transmission in China was faster than expected. According to him, normally only 30% of the population will be infected in an epidemic wave, but about 80% of people in Beijing have been infected in the past month.
He added that more than 600 million people in China could be infected as of December 29.
An internal CDC document said about 2.48 million people were infected with the coronavirus between December 1 and 20. Currently, the total number of covid infections has reached 665 million worldwide while 6.69 million people have died.
Zhang Wenggong, head of the infectious disease department at Shanghai’s Huashan Hospital, said about 80 percent of China’s 1.4 billion people will be infected by Jan. 22, the first day of the Lunar New Year. Zhang said people should avoid gatherings with more than a hundred people.
The People’s Daily said Wuhan Union Hospital has received 16,358 Covid patients since December 7, of which 5,414 or 33% are serious patients. He said that 97% of seriously ill patients can be saved.
However, a Mehbei columnist said the hospitalization of 5,414 seriously ill patients in a single hospital in Wuhan showed that China could have seriously underestimated the pathogenicity of Omicron strains.
In a paper published on Sunday, Yin Shuijun, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, attempted to estimate the number of serious cases and deaths in China.
With the number of hospital beds and several public figures, Yin estimated there are about 70,000 serious Covid patients in Wuhan, or 0.51% of the city’s 13.6 million residents. He said there are 48,700 serious Covid patients in Qingdao, or 0.48% of the city’s 10.1 million residents. He added that there could be about 5 million serious patients in China.
Biochemist Cao Yunlong said it is arbitrary to conclude that the pathogenicity of the omicron is weakened. Cao said the BA.5 variant was actually more pathogenic than its predecessor BA.1. According to him, it seems that new covid strains are less pathogenic only because of the increase in vaccination rates and herd immunity in the world’s population.
As it is still unclear whether there is a new deadly virus in China, many countries, including the United States, Britain, Canada and Japan, have reintroduced Covid testing for incoming Chinese travelers. The Chinese government said it would allow more people to travel abroad on January 8.
Mao Ning, a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, said on Tuesday that it was unacceptable for some countries to try to achieve their political goals by imposing travel restrictions on Chinese travelers. Mao said the application of these rules lacked scientific basis and were unnecessary because anywhere there could be new mutants of Covid. She said China would take countermeasures.
At a Dec. 30 meeting, Chinese health officials updated the WHO on China’s epidemic situation, according to a WHO press release. Chinese scientists will present detailed viral sequence data to the WHO on Tuesday.
Malaysia’s Health Minister Zeliha Mustafa said on Monday that China had handed over some data on its Covid-19 variants and sub-variants to the WHO, some related to the strains discovered in Malaysia. Media reports said they may include the highly contagious Omicron BF.7.
Read: China called for disclosure of more Covid DNA data
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