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China records nearly 13,000 COVID deaths in hospitals in the past week

China records nearly 13,000 COVID deaths in hospitals in the past week

China reported about 13,000 drug-related deaths. covid in hospitals between January 13 and 19, after a senior health official said that the vast majority of the population had already contracted the virus.

The Asian country had reported a week ago that nearly 60,000 people had died from COVID in hospitals as of January 12, but there has been skepticism about the statistics since Beijing lifted controls last month.

China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported on Saturday that 681 hospitalized patients died of respiratory failure due to the coronavirus and another 11,977 died from other illnesses combined with the virus.

READ ALSO: Relief and caution in the first Chinese New Year after the end of the “zero COVID”

These data do not include people who died at home.

Airfinity, an independent consultancy, estimated that China’s daily death rate will peak at 36,000 over the Lunar New Year this weekend.

The firm also estimated that more than 600,000 people have died of the disease since China it dropped its zero COVID policy in December.

China has already passed the peak of infections based on admissions to clinics, emergency rooms and intensive care units, Guo Yanhong, a senior official with the National Health Commission, said on Thursday.

Low probability of a second wave

Tens of millions of people traveled this weekend to reunite with their families and celebrate the most important holiday in the Chinese calendar this Sunday, raising fears of a worsening of the epidemic outbreak.

The Chinese transport authorities project that between this month and February more than 2 billion journeys will be made, one of the most massive movements of people in the world.

READ ALSO: China’s growth in 2022 would be the lowest in 40 years

President Xi Jinping on Wednesday expressed concern about a spread of the virus in China’s rural areas, which have fewer health resources.

But, a senior Chinese health official said the country will not experience a second wave of infections in the next two to three months after millions of people travel to their hometowns from big cities, as around the 80% of the population has already been infected.

“Although the large number of people traveling during the Spring Festival may promote a spread of the epidemic to a certain extent (…) the current epidemic wave has already infected about 80% of the population,” Wu Zunyou, the CDC’s chief of epidemiology, said in a post on the Weibo social network on Saturday.

“In the short term, for example, in the next two to three months the possibility of (…) a second wave of the epidemic in the country is very low.”

On Saturday, residents of Wuhan, the country’s central megapolis where the new coronavirus was first detected in late 2019, celebrated the arrival of the Year of the Rabbit on Saturday night with fireworks, flowers and offerings to the dead. by the virus.

Source: AFP Agency

Source: Gestion

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