(CTN NEWS) – BEIJING – In China’s Zhejiang province, near Shanghai, about a million COVID-19 infections are reported every day, and the figure is expected to double in the coming days, the provincial government reported.
On Sunday, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported no COVID deaths on the mainland for the five days through Saturday, despite a record surge of cases nationwide.
After Beijing changed its zero-COVID policy that had put 700 million citizens under relentless lockdowns and battered the world’s second-largest economy, citizens and experts have called for more accurate data.
About 248 million people, which is nearly 18% of the population, are likely to have contracted the virus in the first 20 days of December, the report said, citing minutes from an internal meeting of China's National Health Commission held on Wednesday. | @Reuters pic.twitter.com/Ob50FST1tZ
— The Philippine Star (@PhilippineStar) December 24, 2022
As the National Health Commission stopped reporting asymptomatic infections, China’s national statistics have become incomplete. The China CDC published daily figures after the commission stopped reporting them on Sunday.
One of the few areas to estimate asymptomatic infection spikes in Zhejiang.
In a statement, the Zhejiang government expects the infection peak to arrive earlier and enter a period of elevated levels around New Year’s Day.
One patient in Zhejiang’s hospitals, with a population of 65.4 million, had severe symptoms caused by COVID, while underlying diseases caused 242 infections.
Global health experts raised eyebrows when China narrowed its definition for reporting COVID deaths, counting only those who died from pneumonia or respiratory failure caused by COVID.
China has not reported any new COVID hospitalizations to the World Health Organization since Beijing eased its restrictions.
Organizers believe the data gap results from authorities struggling to tally cases in the world’s most populous nation.
‘A WEEK OF DANGER’
Capital Economics stated that China is entering the most dangerous weeks of the pandemic.
As the migration ahead of the Lunar New Year gets underway, any parts of the country not currently in a major COVID wave will be in one soon.”
Recently, Qingdao and Dongguan have estimated tens of thousands of COVID infections per day, much higher than the national daily toll without asymptomatic cases.
According to state media, healthcare workers have been asked to work while ill, and retired medical workers in rural communities have been rehired to help grass-roots efforts.
The Lunar New Year in January adds to the urgency when many people return home.
In the past week, Zhejiang fever clinics had 408,400 visits a day, 14 times normal levels.
An Hangzhou health official told state television on Sunday that the number of daily requests to Hangzhou’s emergency center has more than tripled from last year.
On Thursday, Suzhou’s emergency line received a record 7,233 calls.
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