In the Chinese city of Qingdao alone, half a million people have been infected with the coronavirus every day since the beginning of December.
Source AFP
© HECTOR RETAMAL / AFP
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Lchina is currently facing an unprecedented wave of Covid-19 infections. In the city of Qingdao alone, half a million people are infected every day, according to a municipal health official, showing, in a quickly censored article, that official statistics do not reflect the scale of this new wave of contaminations .
A new wave that comes three weeks after Beijing ended without notice most of the strict zero Covid policy health measures, removing onerous quarantines and travel restrictions with a huge impact on the Chinese economy, on background of growing exasperation of the population. China has been scrupulously applying this measure since 2020. Since then, Covid cases in China have exploded and a large part of the inhabitants are left to their own devices, at a time when fever medication and self-tests are lacking in the face of exponential demand.
Between 490,000 and 530,000 new cases per day in Qingdao
Cities across the country are scrambling to cope with the upsurge in infections that have emptied pharmacy shelves and filled hospital wards, while contributing to an apparent overcrowding at crematoriums. But the end of compulsory testing makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to estimate the number of cases, while authorities have changed their methodology for counting infections.
From now on, only people who died directly from respiratory failure linked to Covid-19 are counted in the statistics. A methodology which aims, according to experts, to reduce the number of deaths attributed to the pandemic. However, in the city of Qingdao, in the east of the country, a press organ run by the Communist Party quoted the municipal health official on Friday December 23, according to which the port city recorded “between 490,000 and 530,000 » new cases per day.
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The city of about 10 million people is “in a period of rapid transmission before approaching a peak”, Bo Tao said, quoted in the article, adding that the infection rate is expected increase another 10% over the weekend.
A fast transmission
The article was shared by several other news outlets, but had been edited on Saturday morning to remove the numbers.
China’s health ministry on Saturday reported 4,103 new infections nationwide the day before, with no new deaths. In Shandong, the province where Qingdao is located, authorities have officially registered only 31 new local cases.
The Chinese government exercises tight control over the country’s media, with legions of online censors tasked with removing content deemed politically sensitive. Most government publications have downplayed the severity of the wave of infections, instead describing the abandonment of the zero Covid policy as logical and controlled.
While some media have reported drug shortages and hospitals under strain, estimates of the actual number of cases remain scarce. The government of eastern Jiangxi province said in a social media post on Friday that 80% of its population – or about 36 million people – would be infected by March. More than 18,000 Covid patients have been admitted to major health care facilities across the province in the past two weeks, including nearly 500 serious cases but no deaths, the statement said.