China on Saturday reported nearly 13,000 hospitalized Covid-19 deaths between January 13 and 19, with a top health official saying the vast majority of the population has already been infected. In a press release, the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states that during this period, 681 patients died in hospital from respiratory failure caused by Covid and 11,977 from other diseases linked to the Covid-19 Virus.
Balance sheet undervalued?
This data does not include those who succumbed to the coronavirus at home. As of mid-January, more than a month after health restrictions were lifted, China had reported around 60,000 Covid-related deaths in the country’s medical facilities between December 8, 2022 and January 12, 2023, an estimate that is underestimated in view of the elimination of controls.
According to the British medical analysis company Airfinity, the daily number of Covid deaths in China is expected to rise to around 36,000 on the occasion of the Lunar New Year holiday. Airfinity also estimates that more than 600,000 people have died from the disease since China lifted restrictions in December. Tens of millions of people have traveled across the country in recent days to gather with their families for the New Year celebrations on Sunday, raising fears of a new explosion in the number of contaminations.
China’s transportation authorities forecast that more than two billion trips will be made by February. President Xi Jinping on Wednesday expressed concern about the spread of the virus in rural areas, where many lack medicines and other medical resources.
“The current epidemic wave has already infected around 80% of the population in the country”
But although these movements could encourage transmission, “the current epidemic wave has already infected about 80% of the country’s population,” CDC chief epidemiologist Wu Zunyou said in a message published on China’s Weibo network on Saturday. According to him, “in the short term, for example in the next two or three months, the possibility (…) of a second wave of the epidemic in the country is very low”.
On Thursday, an official with the National Health Commission Guo Yanhong said China has passed the peak of admitting Covid patients to specialized fever clinics and emergency rooms, including those in critical situations.