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Beijing (AFP) – China on Saturday reported nearly 13,000 Covid-19 deaths in hospital between January 13 and 19, with a senior health official saying the vast majority of the population had already been infected.
In a press release, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) specifies that, over this period, 681 patients died in hospital from respiratory failure caused by Covid and 11,977 from other diseases combined with Covid-19. virus.
This data does not include those who succumbed to the coronavirus at home.
In mid-January, more than a month following the lifting of health restrictions, China had reported around 60,000 Covid-related deaths in the country’s medical establishments between December 8, 2022 and January 12, 2023, an estimate estimated under -assessed with regard to the reduction of controls.
According to the British medical analysis company Airfinity, the daily number of Covid deaths in China is expected to climb to around 36,000 on the occasion of the Lunar New Year holidays. Airfinity also estimates that more than 600,000 people have died from the disease since China dropped restrictions in December.
Tens of millions of people have traveled across the country in recent days to reunite with families for the New Year festivities on Sunday, raising fears of the risk of a new explosion in the number of contaminations.
Chinese transport authorities forecast that more than two billion trips would be completed in the month to February.
President Xi Jinping on Wednesday expressed concern regarding the spread of the virus in rural areas, many of which lack medicine and other medical resources.
But although these movements may promote transmission, “the current epidemic wave has already infected regarding 80% of the population in the country,” said CDC chief epidemiologist Wu Zunyou in a message posted on the network on Saturday. Weibo chinese social.
According to him, “in the short term, for example, in the next two or three months, the possibility (…) of a second epidemic wave in the country is very small”.
On Thursday, a National Health Commission official, Guo Yanhong, said China had passed the peak of Covid patient admissions to specialist fever clinics and emergency departments, including for the sick in critical situation.
© 2023 AFP
