Wu Zunyou, an epidemiologist, predicts that the present illness epidemic will extend until mid-January and that the second wave of outbreaks would result from extensive travel during the week-long Lunar New Year festivities which further commences on January 21. Typically, hundreds of thousands of people travel during this season to spend the vacation with their family and friends.
Moreover, the number of daily cases has decreased, according to the most recent government statistics. However, due to the recent decline in mass testing, worries were expressed that the most current Covid data could be unreliable.
Dr. Wu, nevertheless, anticipates a third influx of cases from late February to mid-March when people resume their jobs just after their sabbatical. He stated at a briefing on Saturday that the existing vaccination rates have reduced the number of serious cases and provided some level of protection against the surges.
Likely resulting, Dr. Wu's remarks were made after a prominent US-based research organisation earlier this week predicted that a rise in Covid cases in China might result in over a million deaths from the disease in 2023. The fact that hospitals in China are under a considerable amount of pressure as a consequence of the significant change in Covid rules should indeed be noted.
Having said that, the Xi Jinping government has suffered significant setbacks as a result of the most recently loosening of COVID-19 limitations. Shanghai, the biggest city in China, stated on Saturday that its schools will now function online attributed to the rise in cases. The Chinese government is doubling the number of hospital beds in numerous locations, nevertheless, the present actions are significantly straining the nation's healthcare system. Physicians and other medical personnel, as previously reported, are being asked to report to hospitals even if they have tested positive for the deadly virus. Individuals tend to be afraid to return to the workplace in the middle of the present crisis even as constraints around the nation have begun to loosen. As the nation suffers in chaos, numerous Chinese people have been storing medical supplies due to widespread anxiety.
However, in the previous 24 hours, there have been 20,962 additional instances. According to data gathered by the World Health Organization up until December 19th, there have been 10,072,004 cumulative cases and 31,309 cumulative fatalities. A total of 3,465,113,661 doses of vaccine have been given as of November 28, 2022. A study suggests that the number of deaths from COVID in China may be close to one million.
In the wake of the government relaxing rigorous anti-virus measures, China recorded its first COVID-related deaths in weeks on December 19. However, there are growing concerns that the official total may not fully reflect the severity of the sickness that is ravaging urban areas. According to government data, although the vaccination rate in China is above 90%, it reduces to 57.9% for individuals who have gotten booster injections and to 42.3% for those who are 80 years of age or older if they have already received a vaccine.