Covid in China: cities offer bleak estimates of daily infections
- Monitoring data indicates that about half a million people infected in one day in Qingdao – and the toll is rising
- Provinces expect peak to hit next month during holiday season
In Qingdao in the eastern province of Shandong, about 490,000-530,000 people are becoming infected each day, according to Bo Tao, the head of the city’s health commission.
Bo said on Friday that the numbers were based on monitoring data and were expected to rise by 10 per cent on Saturday and Sunday.
He added that the city was experiencing “rapid transmission before the peak”.
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In Dongguan, in the southern province of Guangdong, between 250,000 and 300,000 people were being infected each day, based on computer modelling and expert assessments, the city’s health commission said on Friday.
It said the growth rate was rising and “many medical institutions and medical staff are facing unprecedented severe challenges and huge pressure”.
The commission also said that as of Thursday 2,528 medical staff in the city’s public hospitals and welfare system were working, despite having a fever or testing positive for Covid.
Nevertheless, the National Health Commission reported just 4,128 new Covid cases on Saturday.
The official tally has become almost meaningless since China abandoned compulsory testing for the coronavirus, once a key part of its strict zero-Covid containment policy.
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The country has been hard hit by the high transmissibility of the Omicron variants and authorities around China – including Zhejiang, Hunan and Shandong provinces – are expecting infections to peak next month as its spread is aided by the Lunar New Year holidays, also known as the Spring Festival.
The official Spring Festival travel season is January 7 to February 15.
Li Wenxiu, deputy director of the Hainan health commission, said the New Year and Spring Festival holidays, as well as increased number of people traveling to the province for a winter break, would promote the spread of infections.
Cases were expected to rise rapidly in rural areas as more migrant workers returned home, Li said.
Anhui province also warned that the wave of infections would shift from cities to rural areas during the holidays.
Jiangxi province in eastern China said it expected the first wave to peak in early January, and “low-level” transmission to occur by mid-March.
This wave would last around three months and result in about 80 per cent of the population being infected, provincial authorities said on Friday.
