Covid in China Latest Updates: Govt expecting peak infection in one week as crisis worsens

China Covid outbreak: China, which has reportedly seen a massive spike in Covid-19 cases in the last one week due to the sudden adoption of its Zero-Covid policy, has said that it is expecting the peak to come within a week. Health officials have told state media the peak would increase the rate of infection, which would last for one or two months, a Reuters report said.  

Zhang Wenhong, director of the National Center for Infectious Diseases, told Shanghai government-backed news outlet The Paper on Thursday that China "is expected to reach the peak of infections within a week." “The peak infection will also increase the rate of severe disease, which will have a certain impact on our entire medical resources,” he said, adding the wave will last another one or two months after that. 

"We must be mentally prepared that infection is inevitable," he added. 

So far, China has reported less than 4,000 new symptomatic local COVID cases nationwide for December 22, and no new COVID deaths for a third consecutive day. On December 19, China reported the first official fatalities since the government shifted away from its zero-Covid policy and eased pandemic restrictions. The government has narrowed the criteria for COVID deaths, which has seen widespread criticism from across the world. 
As per the Chinese government’s new rule those who die directly due to respiratory failure and complications due to any variant of Coronavirus would be counted under the Covid death statistics. The counting method goes against World Health Organization (WHO) guidance. Due to this rule, the death toll reported currently is much below the actual death toll. 

As per the latest estimates based on ground reports, infections in China are likely to be more than a million a day with deaths at more than 5,000 a day, British-based health data firm Airfinity said this week. 

This has resulted in clogged hospitals, overflowing morgues, and overburdened crematoriums, which are unable to keep up with a high influx of bodies too, according to social media footage. 

A Shanghai hospital has estimated half of the commercial hub's 25 million people would get infected by the end of next week. Experts say China could face more than a million COVID deaths next year. 

WHO’s concern 

The WHO has said that it is a matter of concern that hospitals in many parts of the country. It noted that though China is showing no deaths, the intensive care units (ICU) seem to busy and overflowing. 

WHO emergencies chief Dr Michael Ryan has urged China to provide more information about the latest spread of the virus. "In China, what's been reported is relatively low numbers of cases in ICUs, but anecdotally ICUs are filling up,” he said. 

"We've been saying this for weeks that this highly infectious virus was always going to be very hard to stop completely, with just public health and social measures." 

Speaking at the weekly news conference in Geneva, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he is "very concerned over the evolving situation in China". 

He appealed for specific data on disease severity, hospital admissions, and intensive care requirements.