Authorities have recorded the first two deaths since China abandoned the zero-Covid policy: but the data is said to be entirely unreliable. The alarm now extends to other cities: virologists fear three waves of infection by March
FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT FROM BEIJING
The streets of Beijing are empty, shops and schools are closed: citizens are at home either because they have contracted Covid or because they are caring for infected relatives.
According to unofficial estimates, 40% of the Chinese capital’s 22 million people have contracted the Omicron variant of the coronavirus.
Beijing currently seems to be the city most affected by this infection explosion, but alarm signals are also coming from other metropolises: Shanghai has ordered the closure of schools and distance learning.
Factories in many provinces in China are so understaffed that workers in the megacity of Chongqing have been ordered to report for work even if they are positive (as long as they are asymptomatic or with mild symptoms).
The Center for Epidemic Control expects three waves of infection, which are expected to last until March. The current one is expected to peak in mid-January; but then a second wave will begin in agricultural towns and villages, caused by the return of workers employed in urban industries, who in a few days will set out for the celebrations of the Lunar New Year (which falls on January 22nd this year); and finally, a new wave of infections was triggered by the return of migrants to the big cities.
Three terrible months for the Chinese health system.
Millions of infections now going undetected because authorities say it’s impossible. And just today, Beijing authorities registered the first two deaths since December 7, when the Covid-Zero system was dismantled (but infections had been running for weeks).
Evidence is pouring in from hospitals and crematoria that clashes with official data, and disbelieving comments can be read on social media: What are these manipulated statistics for?; Why are they making fun of us?. Overall, China has reported just 5,237 deaths during these three years of the pandemic. Epidemiologists around the world are incredulous.
Communicating a negligible number of deaths serves the narrative of the party, which claims to have waived Covid Zero restrictions because Omicron’s pathogenicity has geometrically decreased compared to previous variants.
A way of not admitting that three years of lockdown, quarantines in leper hospitals, a deadlocked economy was a huge mistake.
December 19, 2022 (Change December 19, 2022 | 15:59)
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