The number of daily deaths from Covid-19 in China could reach 36,000 during the Lunar New Year festivities, according to a study released Wednesday by the British health analysis company Airfinity.
The company said its analysis indicated the virus had “spread rapidly into rural areas,” in part because people moved during the Lunar New Year holidays.
Airfinity adjusted its forecasts and anticipated the peak of infections between the period between January 13 and 27, when the number of Covid-19 cases will rise to 4.8 million per day.
According to the specialized company, the number of daily deaths will reach a maximum of 36,000 on January 26, at the height of the festive period, which begins on the 20th and lasts for a week, although the travel season has officially ended. It started on January 7th.
Airfinity initially forecast two waves of infections, in the days after the holiday period and in March, but now anticipates a single wave of greater intensity during the holiday week.
This implies “increased hospital pressure” and a “potential increase in the mortality rate,” according to the company.
The adjustment in the forecasts was due to the fact that some provinces such as Henan (center), Gansu (west), Qinghai (west) or Yunnan (south) “have already exceeded the peak of infections.”
In some provinces, increased demand for intensive care “will exceed hospital capacity by up to six times,” said Airfinity director Matt Linley.
Likewise, the company has corrected the death data accumulated since the beginning of last December, when China began to dismantle the “zero covid” policy: the previous calculation pointed to 437,000 deaths, while the most recent one points to 608,000.
The State Council (Executive) urged, in mid-December, local authorities to give priority to health services in rural areas “to protect the population”, pointing out the “relative scarcity of medical resources” given the high number of planned trips.
China’s National Health Commission announced last Saturday a total of 59,938 deaths between December 8 and January 12 this year.
World Health Organization (WHO) director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said last week that China was not providing full numbers of deaths from Covid-19 in the current outbreak, preventing it from realizing the true extent of the pandemic. disease worldwide.
China argues that it has shared its data “in an open, timely and transparent manner” since the start of the pandemic.
Source: TSF
