The dreaded case and death explosion due to the lunar New Year did not take place. While 80 % of the population was contaminated by variants known on January 21, the situation seems to normalize.
by Frédéric Lemaître (Beijing, correspondent)
Two months after having brutally ended its zero covid policy on December 7, 2022, China can congratulate itself to see the first wave of contamination passed. Friday, February 10, South Korea brought a new confirmation. From this Saturday, Seoul will again grant short stay visas to travelers from China. It had ended there, in early January, like other countries, due to the large number of cases of COVID-19 on board planes. The South Korean authorities said that the rate of passengers tested positive for landing after their departure from China had dropped to 1.4 % against 20 % at the time of the introduction of restrictions.
The day before, Japan had already relaxed the measures for travelers from China because, since the end of January, less than 1 % of the passengers were tested positive. Another symbol of this return to normal, in a good part of the country, including Beijing, primary and secondary schools, closed since November 2022, will reopen on Monday, and students will not have to present prior tests to be admitted .
China no longer publishes daily data on the number of positive and death cases, but the latest information was reassuring. On the 1 February, the health authorities indicated that they had recorded two days earlier than 434 deaths linked to the COVVI-19, 89.8 % less than the 4,273 recorded on January 4, At the peak of the wave. China has officially recorded 6,364 deaths related to COVVI-19 between January 20 and 26, twice as much as the previous week. 2>
unreliable statistics
On February 9, Chinese experts were again optimistic. Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC China), said that around 80 % of the population had been infected on January 21, and that as a result “the risk of a new COVID-19 epidemic comparable to that which culminated in December is weak “. According to epidemiologist Ben Cowling, of the University of Hong Kong, “the next peak could occur in four to six months. Infections will be on average less severe because of higher collective immunity, but there will be deaths in particular In older adults and in particular those who have not been vaccinated recently “.
Furthermore, no new variant appeared during the recent epidemic in China, according to a Study published Thursday in the journal The Lancet . A team led by Gao Fu, of the Chinese Academy of Science Academy Institute, analyzed the genome of 413 cases of COVID-19 appeared between November 14 and December 20. According to them, all cases – 350 domestic infections and 63 imported – belonged to known strains, and more than 90 % of local infections involved the two omicron ba. 5.2 and BF.7 subvariants.
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