BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s Zhejiang province, a large industrial region near Shanghai, is battling about one million new coronavirus infections every day, with that number expected to double in the coming days. It is expected, the provincial government said on Sunday.
The China Center for Disease Control and Prevention said on Sunday that no COVID deaths were reported on the mainland in the five days through Saturday, despite a record surge in cases across the country.
Citizens and experts say infections surged after Beijing put hundreds of millions of its citizens under a relentless lockdown and made sweeping changes to its COVID-zero policy that hit the world’s second-largest economy. We are looking for more accurate data.
As the National Health Commission stopped reporting asymptomatic cases, China’s nationwide figures were incomplete, making it difficult to track cases. On Sunday, the commission stopped reporting daily figures, after which the China CDC announced.
Zhejiang is one of the few regions to estimate the recent surge in infections, including asymptomatic cases.
“It is estimated that the peak of the infection will arrive earlier in Zhejiang and enter a period of high levels around New Year’s Day, during which time the number of new infections will reach up to 2 million each day,” the Zhejiang provincial government said in a statement. I will become a person,” he said.
Zhejiang province, with a population of 65.4 million, reported that of the 13,583 infections being treated in the province’s hospitals, 1 patient had severe symptoms caused by COVID and 242 severe and serious cases. He said the condition’s infection was caused by an underlying medical condition.
China has narrowed its definition for reporting deaths from COVID, counting only those from COVID-induced pneumonia or respiratory failure, raising eyebrows among global health experts.
The World Health Organization has received no new COVID hospitalization data from China since Beijing eased restrictions. The organization says data gaps may be due to authorities struggling to tally cases in the world’s most populous country.
“Most Dangerous Week”
“China is entering the most dangerous weeks of the pandemic,” said a research note from Capital Economics. “Authorities are currently making little effort to slow the spread of the infection, and as migration begins ahead of the Lunar New Year, there will soon be areas that are not currently exposed to major waves of COVID.”
The cities of Qingdao and Dongguan recently had an estimated tens of thousands of daily COVID infections, far exceeding the daily number of infected nationwide without asymptomatic cases.
The country’s health system is under tremendous strain, according to state media, with staff being asked to work while sick, and even retired health workers in rural areas supporting grassroots efforts. have been rehired to
Adding to the urgency is the approach of the Lunar New Year in January, when huge numbers of people will return home.
Over the past week, the number has reached 408,400 per day, 14 times the normal level, a senior Zhejiang official told a news conference.
Daily requests to emergency centers in Zhejiang’s capital Hangzhou have more than tripled on average from last year’s levels, state television reported on Sunday, citing Hangzhou health officials.
The eastern city of Suzhou said late Saturday that its emergency lines received a record 7,233 calls on Thursday.
Reported by Bernard Orr and Roxanne Liu.Edited by William Mallard
Our standards: Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.