The many displacements induced by the Lunar New Year’s holidays, which falls on Sunday, raise fears of the worsening of the epidemic.
MO12345lemonde with AFP
China reported, Saturday, January 22, of nearly 13,000 deaths linked to the COVID-19 in the hospital between January 13 and 19. A high official of health authorities says that the vast majority of the population has already been contaminated. In a press release, the Center for the Control and Prevention of Chinese Diseases (CDC) specifies that, over this period, 681 patients died in the hospital of a respiratory failure caused by the COVVI-19 and 11 977, D ‘ Other diseases combined with the Sars-Cov-2 coronavirus. These data do not take into account the people who died at COVVI-19 at home.
two billion journeys in January
In mid-January, more than a month after the brutal lifting of health restrictions, China had reported around 60,000 deaths related to COVID-19 in the country’s medical establishments between December 8, 2022 and On January 12, 2023, an assessment considered undervalued.
According to the British Airfinity medical analysis company, the daily number of deaths due to COVVI -19 in China could reach around 36,000 for the Lunar New Any holidays – which will take place on Sunday – period during which dozens move dozens of millions of people. Chinese transport authorities believe that more than two billion journeys would be carried out during the month, until February.
But, although these movements can promote transmission, “in the short term, for example in the two or three months coming, the possibility (…) of a second epidemic wave in the country is very reduced”, because “The current epidemic wave has already contaminated around 80 % of the population in the country,” said CDC chief epidemiologist, Wu Zunyou, in a message posted on the Chinese social network Weibo on Saturday.
Airfinity also estimates that more than 600,000 people have died of the disease since the abandonment, by China, of the restrictions which it had implemented within the framework of its zero covid strategy.