New Delhi: British health analytics company Airfinity has estimated that about 9,000 people a day are dying from Covid infection in China. This estimation comes as China's National Health Commission (NHC) on Friday said there had been one Covid fatality and 5,500 new cases in the last 24 hours while purported visuals on social media show hospitals unable to cope with the influx of patients.
According to Airfinity, the death toll could rise to as many as 25,000 a day, reaching up to 1.7 million people by April, The Guardian reported.
Top Points On China Covid Surge:
- China which once proudly published its Covid statistics stopped publishing a daily death toll as deaths and infections began to mount. While the NHC reported only one Covid death, Airfinity estimates that about 9,000 people a day are dying from Covid in the country.
- An NHC spokesperson, Jiao Yahui, admitted recently that China is excluding many deaths from its Covid toll that would otherwise be included in other countries as Covid fatalities, news agency AFP reported. While worldwide, any death within 28 days of a positive nucleic acid test is considered as Covid fatality, Beijing decided to count only those who die of respiratory failure caused by the Covid infection.
- Airfinity predicts that the next wave of Coronavirus infections is likely to hit rural areas in late winter and could affect even more people. In a statement on Thursday, the British health analytics company estimated that cumulative Covid deaths in China since December 1 likely reached 100,000, with infections at 18.6 million.
It said it used modelling based on data from Chinese provinces before the recent changes to reporting cases were implemented, The Guardian reported.
Airfinity predicted that China’s Covid infections could reach their first peak on January 13 with 3.7m cases a day.
Meanwhile, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak finally announced Covid curbs on travellers from China starting from January 5, amid criticism from a number of Conservative MPs over his “dithering”. Passengers arriving from China to England from January 5, 2023, will need to show a negative Covid-19 pre-departure test (PDT) taken no more than two days prior to departure.
The Prime Minister had delivered mixed messages about whether the UK would follow other countries in screening arrivals from China. On Friday, he backed a change of policy in line with other countries. The UK Health Security Agency will begin surveillance on January 8, wherein samples of passengers arriving in England from China will be tested for the virus as they arrive, as per The Guardian's report.
Spain, Italy, Israel, the United States, and India have made negative Covid tests mandatory for travellers from China.
The World Health Organization has again urged China to regularly share specific and real-time data on the COVID-19 situation in the country, amid a surge in coronavirus cases after Beijing relaxed its strict "zero-COVID" policy.
The global health agency has asked Chinese health officials to share data on genetic sequencing, hospitalisations, deaths, and vaccinations.
Now, the US is considering sampling wastewater taken from international aircraft to track any emerging new Covid-19 variants.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would test the wastewater to provide a better solution to tracking the virus and slowing its entry into the US, The Guardian reported three infectious disease experts as saying.
Covid infections began surging across China in November, picking up pace this month after Beijing ended its zero-Covid policies including regular PCR testing on its population and publication of data on asymptomatic cases.
Following anti-curbs protests, the Chinese government went for an abrupt shift in propaganda messaging about the pandemic. Earlier, the virus was presented as a menace to be avoided at any cost, but now Chinese citizens are being told it is a little worse than a cold.
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