The Covid situation in China is completely untamable currently. The authorities say it is impossible to track how fast the virus is spreading after the end of mandatory mass testing. Meanwhile, health data firm Airfinity estimates more than 5,000 people are probably dying each day from COVID-19 in China, which is in sharp contrast to the data shared by the country. Here are the 10 things that you need to know about the current COVID situation in China:Â
- Most who are currently contracting the infection are elderly individuals. Millions of elderly people across China are still not fully vaccinated, raising concerns that the virus may kill the most vulnerable citizens in huge numbers.
- Many who are working in hospitals have also tested positive for the virus. “A lot of hospital staff are positive as well, but we have no choice but to carry on working,” a paramedic at Chongqing Medical University First Affiliated Hospital said, as reported by the news agency AFP
- Cases were currently rising fastest in Beijing and the southern province of Guangdong. Meanwhile, in Shanghai, the corridors of the emergency departments in hospitals were lined with stretchers filled with elderly people hooked up to oxygen tanks.
- The Shanghai Deji Hospital, posting on its WeChat account late on Wednesday, estimated there were about 5.43 million positives in the city and that 12.5 million in China’s main commercial hub will get infected by the end of the year. “This year’s Christmas Eve, New Year’s Day, and the Lunar New Year are destined to be unsafe,” said the private hospital, which employs some 400 staff
- The post was no longer available on WeChat by Thursday afternoon. A person who answered the hospital’s main telephone line said they could not immediately comment on the article.
- Airfinity, a UK-based health data firm, estimated that more than 5,000 people are probably dying each day from COVID-19 in China, this is in sharp contrast to official data from Beijing on the country’s current outbreak.
- Airfinity said its mortality risk analysis suggested between 1.3 to 2.1 million people could die in China’s current COVID outbreak. Analyses by other modelling groups have also predicted as many as 2.1 million deaths.
- Airfinity estimates the wave could have two peaks at 3.7 million a day in mid-January in regions where cases are currently rising and 4.2 million a day in March in other provinces.
- However, a leading Chinese medical expert said only deaths caused by pneumonia and respiratory failure after contracting COVID will be classified as having been caused by the coronavirus.
- A senior World Health Organization official said on Wednesday that China might be struggling to keep a tally of COVID infections as it experiences a big spike in cases.
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