China’s Zhejiang has 1m daily Covid cases, expected to double

Published December 25, 2022
People wait outside a fever clinic at a hospital as coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak continues, in Shanghai, China on Dec 24. — Reuters
People wait outside a fever clinic at a hospital as coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak continues, in Shanghai, China on Dec 24. — Reuters

China’s Zhejiang, a big industrial province near Shanghai, is battling around a million new daily Covid-19 infections, a number expected to double in the days ahead, the provincial government said on Sunday.

Despite a record surge of cases nationwide, China reported no Covid deaths on the mainland for the five days through Saturday, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Sunday.

Citizens and experts have called for more accurate data as infections surged after Beijing made sweeping changes to a zero-Covid policy that had put hundreds of millions of its citizens under relentless lockdowns and battered the world’s second-largest economy.

Nationwide figures from China had become incomplete as the National Health Commission stopped reporting asymptomatic infections, making it harder to track cases.

On Sunday the commission stopped reporting daily figures, which the China CDC then published.

Zhejiang is among the few areas to estimate their recent spikes in infections including asymptomatic cases.

“The infection peak is estimated to arrive earlier in Zhejiang and to enter a period of elevated level around New Year’s Day, during which the daily new infection number will be up to two million,” the Zhejiang government said in a statement.

Zhejiang, with a population of 65.4 million, said that among the 13,583 infections being treated in the province’s hospitals, one patient had severe symptoms caused by Covid while 242 infections of severe and critical conditions were caused by underlying diseases.

China narrowed its definition for reporting Covid deaths — counting only those from Covid-caused pneumonia or respiratory failure — raising eyebrows among world health experts.

The World Health Organization has received no data from China on new Covid hospitalisations since Beijing eased its restrictions. The organisation says the data gap might be due to the authorities struggling to tally cases in the world’s most populous country.

Most dangerous weeks

 A man wearing a protective mask holds a picture frame of a loved one outside a funeral home, as coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreaks continue in Shanghai, China on December 23. — Reuters
A man wearing a protective mask holds a picture frame of a loved one outside a funeral home, as coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreaks continue in Shanghai, China on December 23. — Reuters

“China is entering the most dangerous weeks of the pandemic,” said a research note from Capital Economics.

“The authorities are making almost no efforts now to slow the spread of infections and, with the migration ahead of Lunar New Year getting started, any parts of the country not currently in a major Covid wave will be soon.”

The cities of Qingdao and Dongguan have each estimated tens of thousands of daily Covid infections recently, much higher than the national daily toll without asymptomatic cases.

The country’s healthcare system has been under enormous strain, with staff being asked to work while sick and even retired medical workers in rural communities being rehired to help grass-root efforts, according to state media.

Bolstering the urgency is the approach of the Lunar New Year in January when huge numbers of people return home.

Visits to Zhejiang fever clinics hit 408,400 a day — 14 times normal levels — in the past week, a Zhejiang official told a news conference.

Daily requests to the emergency centre in Zhejiang’s capital, Hangzhou, have recently more than tripled on average from last year’s level, state television reported on Sunday, citing an Hangzhou health official.

The eastern city of Suzhou said late on Saturday its emergency line received a record 7,233 calls on Thursday.

Opinion

Editorial

Trump 2.0
Updated 07 Nov, 2024

Trump 2.0

It remains to be seen how his promises to bring ‘peace’ to Middle East reconcile with his blatantly pro-Israel bias.
Fait accompli
07 Nov, 2024

Fait accompli

A SLEW of secretively conceived and hastily enacted legislation has achieved its intended result: the powers of the...
IPP contracts
07 Nov, 2024

IPP contracts

THE government expects the ongoing ‘negotiations’ with power producers aimed at revising the terms of sovereign...
Rushed legislation
Updated 06 Nov, 2024

Rushed legislation

For all its stress on "supremacy of parliament", the ruling coalition has wasted no opportunity to reiterate where its allegiances truly lie.
Jail reform policy
06 Nov, 2024

Jail reform policy

THE state is making a fresh attempt to improve conditions in Pakistan’s penitentiaries by developing a national...
BISP overhaul
06 Nov, 2024

BISP overhaul

IT has emerged that the spouses of over 28,500 Sindh government employees have been illicitly benefiting from BISP....