Covid: China estimates almost 37 mn people got infected on a single day this week, says report

China Covid crisis: China, which is battling the sudden surge of infections in the last one week, has reported that nearly 37 million people may have been infected with Covid-19 on a single day this week, a government report stated on Friday. This current crisis with 37 million cases a day is so far the largest in the world, a Bloomberg report said.  

As per the current estimates, as many as 248 million people, or nearly 18 per cent of the population, likely got infected due to the virus in the first 20 days of December. This data was shared at an internal meeting of China’s National Health Commission held on Wednesday, the Bloomberg report stated.  

The report stated that it is unclear how Beijing came up with the estimate, as the country shut down its PCR testing booths earlier this month after adopting the Zero Covid policy. 

On Thursday, a news analysis by British scientific information and analytics company Airfinity estimated that China is most likely experiencing a whopping 1 million Covid infections and 5,000 virus-related deaths every day. But the current estimates are much more than that and might surpass the earlier record of about 4 million cases in a day set in January.  

Peak infection in a week

On Thursday, Chinese health officials 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.   

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. 

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. 

New counting rule

The Chinese government has said 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 ruling party in China, Communist Party of China, has been saying that its newly adopted “Zero Covid” is a superior strategy of tackling the pandemic as compared to that of its western counterparts. It has claimed that with the adoption of Zero Covid measures, there were only 5,242 Covid-related deaths until December 19, compared to 1.1 million in the United States, which is the highest in any country.

But hospitals and crematoriums in the cities of Beijing, Chongqing and Guangzhou are reporting a different reality. Hospitals, funeral homes, and crematoriums in Beijing are struggling to keep up with the emergency requests that have jumped to 30,000 a day from an average of about 5,000, as per news reports.

According to a Reuters report, workers at funeral parlours in Beijing said that there has been a surge in residents looking to cremate deceased relatives, leading to queues and delays. Security guards are standing outside the crematoriums in Beijing where workers in hazmat suits can be seen carrying the dead inside. Many reports have said that crematoriums now managing as many as 22-30 cremations a day. Before December, the number was mere 5 or 6.