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Gigantic corona wave in China: experts expect a billion infected people

2023-01-02T12:28:14.758Z


Gigantic corona wave in China: experts expect a billion infected people Created: 2023-01-02 13:18 By: Sven Hauberg Even if the wave has already peaked in some cities, the corona tsunami continues to have China under control. Foreign countries are also reacting. Munich/Beijing – Many Chinese had imagined things differently: Western governments and experts have been demanding for months that Chi


Gigantic corona wave in China: experts expect a billion infected people

Created: 2023-01-02 13:18

By: Sven Hauberg

Even if the wave has already peaked in some cities, the corona tsunami continues to have China under control.

Foreign countries are also reacting.

Munich/Beijing – Many Chinese had imagined things differently: Western governments and experts have been demanding for months that China should finally drop its corona measures and open up to the rest of the world – and as soon as China does exactly that, many countries open up once down the barriers.

Japan, for example, limited the number of flights from China, and Morocco even issued a general entry ban for people from the People's Republic.

Other countries, including Australia, Canada, France, Great Britain and the USA, require travelers from China to have a negative corona test.

It could be difficult with trips abroad in the near future, even though the government in Beijing wants to issue passports again and lift the quarantine requirement for travelers returning at the end of the week.

"unfair",

writes a user on China's social media platform Weibo;

another feels “discriminated against”.

All those countries that have issued entry restrictions justify this with the gigantic corona wave that is currently sloshing through the People's Republic.

China surprisingly decided on December 7th to lift almost all corona restrictions after three years of a zero-Covid policy with mass tests, lockdowns and curfews.

Since then, hundreds of millions of Chinese have been infected with the virus and thousands have died - China's health authority has recently stopped publishing official infection figures, and the death statistics only include people infected with corona who died of pneumonia or respiratory failure.

According to internal estimates by the authority, 248 million people in China were infected with the virus in the first three weeks of December alone;

Expert: There is a risk of a billion infected

The epidemiologist Ben Cowling from the University of Hong Kong, for example, expects a billion infected people - this winter alone.

That would be more than 70 percent of the Chinese population.

"As highly contagious as Omicron is now, it's hard to imagine lower infection rates," Cowling told Tagesschau.

At the beginning of December, when the opening began, the former vice director of China's health authority, Feng Zijian, had predicted that as many as 80 to 90 percent of the Chinese would become infected.

"No matter how the measures are adjusted, most of us will become infected at some point," Feng said at the time, according to state media.

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Corona in China: Xi Jinping calls for perseverance

With the end of the corona measures, the nationwide obligation to test, which had been an everyday companion for many Chinese for years, was no longer applicable.

This is one of the reasons why it is so difficult to say exactly what the corona situation in the country is at the moment.

In some cities and provinces, however, the wave may already have peaked.

State media reported on Sunday about surveys by regional health authorities in the provinces of Sichuan, Hainan and Zhejiang, according to which more than half of those surveyed in several cities said they had already been infected.

In some cases, the infection rate is said to be almost 70 percent.

Calculations by scientists from Shanghai also show that the corona wave in the megacities of Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing reached its peak at the end of the year, and in the metropolis of Guangzhou in the south of the country even at the end of November.

The researchers at Jiao Tong University and Ruijin Hospital suspect, however, that many rural areas in China are still ahead of the big wave.

Especially on the Chinese New Year, when hundreds of millions of people travel to their relatives in the country around January 22nd, the corona situation is likely to worsen significantly again.

Then young, infected city dwellers could become a danger to the older rural population;

in addition, the healthcare system is underdeveloped in many poorer areas.

A virus sample is taken from a traveler from China at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris on New Year's Day.

© Julien de Rosa/AFP

While the hospitals in many cities across the country are already groaning under the burden of the infected and the crematoria can no longer keep up with the cremation of the deceased, head of state and party leader Xi Jinping is calling for perseverance.

"The light of hope is right in front of us," Xi said in an unusually candid New Year's address on Saturday.

In his almost 15-minute speech, Xi also indirectly addressed the protests at the end of November, which are said to have contributed to the end of his zero-Covid policy.

"It's only natural that different people have different concerns or different views on the same issue," Xi said.

But now it is important to stand together.

"Let's make an extra effort, because perseverance and solidarity mean victory."

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Is a new virus variant emerging in China?

Meanwhile, fears are growing abroad that a new virus variant could arise in China given the current corona wave.

At a meeting with representatives of Chinese health authorities on Friday, the World Health Organization (WHO) called for more detailed and faster status reports on the infection process in the People's Republic.

Among other things, data on the genetic sequencing of cases that tested positive are important in order to be able to identify possible new variants at an early stage.

Meanwhile, German health politician Janosch Dahmen is calling for “mutation variant monitoring”, as Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach had already announced.

"A large number of people infected with the coronavirus gives the virus many opportunities to change," Dahmen told Die

Welt

.

“New, much more dangerous virus variants are unlikely, but possible.” However, the Green politician does not believe in entry restrictions that other countries have already issued.

In view of the high number of infections in China, it is "unrealistic" to stop the spread of the virus.

Politicians from the other traffic light parties SPD and FDP do not currently want to introduce any restrictions on travelers from China.

Criticism of the federal government's hesitation comes from the opposition.

For example, Bavaria's Health Minister Klaus Holetschek is calling for the introduction of travel restrictions to be considered.

Several omicron subvariants are currently predominant in China.

Experts assume that the majority of the population in Germany is already immune to these variants through vaccination or infection.

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2023-01-02

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