Local experts estimate that a total of 600 million people will have been infected with covid-19 in China over the last month, after the country ended the ‘zero cases’ policy.
That number is equivalent to 40% of the population of the Asian country, which is the most populous in the world.
Cited by the local press, epidemiologist Zeng Guang, member of the High-Level Expert Panel of the National Health Commission of the Asian country, considered that estimate “reasonable”, since most Chinese cities reported that at least 50% of their population tested positive for the virus over the last few weeks.
Zeng admitted that the speed of transmission of the virus in China was faster than expected, with 80% of Beijing’s population having been infected within a month. In Shanghai, the economic “capital” of China, that figure amounts to around 70%, he said.
China’s two main cities have more than 20 million inhabitants.
The official added that more than 600 million people in the country will have been infected by December 29.
At the beginning of last month, China abolished the ‘zero cases’ strategy of covid-19, which had been in force in the country for almost three years, resulting in a rapid spread of the virus, given the lack of natural immunity in the population.
As China stopped doing any meaningful tracking of the development of outbreaks in the country, official data became out of step with reality on the ground. The images of crowded crematoria and emergency services suggest, however, that the country is experiencing a serious public health crisis.
Chinese experts estimated that China currently has about five million patients in serious condition. The British company Airfinity, which analyzes data from the health sector, pointed out that China is currently suffering about 9,000 deaths per day caused by the disease.
Cao Yunlong, a biochemist and assistant professor at Peking University, said the lethality of different strains of the Omicron variant has been underestimated in China. He noted that although Omicron’s BA.1 strain was milder than the Delta variant, the BA.5 version, which is the most prolific in China, has regained the level of pathogenicity.
Liang Wannian, a Chinese epidemiologist and former leader of the National Health Commission team responsible for combating the coronavirus, considered that it is very difficult to calculate the mortality rate of current outbreaks, which continue to spread rapidly. Liang said that only at the end will it be possible to obtain a more accurate number.
An internal document from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that around 248 million people were infected with the coronavirus between December 1 and 20.
Zhang Wenhong, head of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Huashan Hospital in Shanghai, said that about 80% of China’s 1.4 billion people will be infected by January 22, the first day of the Lunar New Year, the main holiday of Chinese families.
