China on Saturday reported nearly 13,000 hospital deaths from Covid-19 between January 13 and 19, with a top health official saying the vast majority of the population had already been infected.
In a press release, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) specifies that, during this period, 681 patients died in hospital from respiratory failure caused by Covid and 11,977 from other diseases combined with the Covid virus. -19. This data does not include those who succumbed to the coronavirus at home.
As of mid-January, more than a month after the lifting of health restrictions, China had reported around 60,000 Covid-related deaths in the country’s medical facilities between December 8, 2022 and January 12, 2023, a estimate that is estimated to be underestimated.
Another jump is expected with the Chinese New Year festivities
According to the British medical analysis company Airfinity, the daily number of Covid deaths in China is expected to climb to around 36,000 on the occasion of the Lunar New Year festivities. Airfinity also estimates that more than 600,000 people have died from the disease since China lifted restrictions in December.
Tens of millions of people have traveled across the country in recent days to reunite with families for the New Year festivities that fall on Sunday, raising fears of a new explosion in the number of infections.
Chinese transportation authorities forecast that more than two billion trips will be completed in the month to February.
80% of the population already infected according to the authorities
But while these movements may promote transmission, “the current epidemic wave has already infected about 80% of the country’s population,” CDC chief epidemiologist Wu Zunyou said in a message posted on the Chinese social network Weibo. Saturday.
According to him, “in the short term, for example, in the next two or three months, the possibility (…) of a second epidemic wave in the country is very small.”
Source: BFM TV
