While deeming the abandonment of the Zero Covid policy inevitable, experts and epidemiologists expected a massive epidemic wave in China.
They weren't wrong.
About ten days after ending mass confinements, generalized screening and systematic tracing of inhabitants, the second most populous country in the world is facing an upsurge in infections, the number of which had started to increase at the end of November.
We take stock.
Lots of people infected
Impossible to know, precisely, how many inhabitants catch the Covid in China each day.
Often mandatory testing every day or every two or three days in many cities has been dropped, making it impossible to track the outbreak based on positive cases.
But everything suggests that infections are exploding.
According to a survey published on December 15 by the magazine
The Beijinger
among 3,000 expatriates in Beijing, noted by Le Monde, more than half of them have caught the Covid during the last two weeks.
Many residents are content with self-tests, carried out at home.
Sales of drugstore testing kits have soared, as have those of fever and cold medicines and traditional Chinese remedies.
Beijing.
9 days after the Big Bang of the opening, only the delivery men - overwhelmed - criss-cross the deserted city.
pic.twitter.com/pUllFItqsf
— Lemaitre Frederic (@LemaitreFrederi) December 16, 2022
Some neighborhoods in different Chinese cities are self-confined, with residents staying at home because they are sick or so as not to risk becoming sick.
“We all caught the virus at the same time, but it was often a little cold”, testifies to the Parisian a French expatriate living in Zhengzhou for five years.
He himself is in full convalescence… and is going to an expatriate bar this afternoon to see the World Cup final.
Medical staff sick but forced to work
A lot of infections, and therefore an influx of patients to the hospital.
Several photos and videos shared on social networks show queues of several hours before being able to get treatment.
Another day with more videos on Chinese social media of overcrowded hospitals and patients waiting at fever clinics.
There are those saying it's all because China opened up too fast.
Others are happy that lockdowns are over: "At least you now have the freedom to go the hospital!"
pic.twitter.com/qpAfSuXbsu
— Manya Koetse (@manyapan) December 16, 2022
Caregivers are not immune to this epidemic wave.
A Beijing-based doctor told Reuters that some hospitals in the capital had up to 80% of their workers infected, but many still had to work due to staff shortages.
"Infected people have been forced to work in hospitals, which creates an environment conducive to transmission (of the virus)," Chen Xi, a Chinese professor specializing in health policy, told the BBC.
Overwhelmed Crematoriums
Officially, the last death of a patient with Covid in China dates from December 3.
In reality, "we cremate twenty bodies a day, mainly old people", because "a lot of people have fallen ill recently", an employee of a crematorium told AFP.
Another official told the Wall Street Journal that they had to carry out cremations before dawn and in the middle of the night, in order to cope with the influx of bodies.
To read also "I become asocial": the immense fed up of the French in China, confined or who fear to be
China is penalized by the relatively weak immunity of its population.
Few residents had already had Covid since the start of the pandemic, and only 40% of people over 80 are vaccinated with a booster dose.
The country thus risks a large number of deaths, like Hong Kong when the territory had relaxed its “Zero Covid” policy, almost a year ago.
