With the arrival of the Lunar New Year, China could reach the peak of 36,000 deaths from Covid per day: this is the forecast of the British research company Airfinity, which saw upwards the estimates presented last December 29 regarding the most at risk of spreading the virus after Beijing’s decision to abandon the “zero Covid” policy.
The mass movements of millions of people, ready to be reunited with their families, will favor the circulation of the infection, with potentially disastrous effects and numbers from the first lockdown.
Airfinity explained that it had raised the forecasts for deaths – which went from 25,000 to 36,000 – both based on the speed of the spread of the infection and the lack of clear information on the real situation of the pandemic in the country.
Only last Saturday did the Communist Party provide some data on the new wave of Covid that started at the beginning of last month: there were 60,000 deaths attributable to the virus between 8 December 2022 and 12 January 2023, he said at a press conference Jiao Yahui, head of the Medical Administration Office of the National Health Commission.
Of these, 5,500 had died of respiratory failure caused directly by the infection – therefore insertable in general statistics – while all the others were considered “Covid-related” deaths because the patients had other serious chronic pathologies.
China has in fact “narrowed” the definition of mortality from Covid after dismantling the zero tolerance policy. According to an analysis by Bloomberg, the official balance net of data manipulated by the government is 1.17 deaths per day for every million inhabitants: “This is a significantly lower daily mortality rate than that recorded in other countries that have initially pursued Covid Zero or who managed to contain the virus after easing the rules on the pandemic,” writes the agency.
President Xi Jinping admitted he was “concerned” about the new wave: “Covid prevention and control in China are still in a time of stress – he said in a video message to citizens – but the light is ahead of us, tenacity is victory”.
