[NTDTimesBeijingtimeDecember192022]China’s chief epidemiologist Wu Zunyou said recently that China is expected to experience three waves of epidemics this winter, and is currently in the first wave of a surge in cases. He warned that with the Chinese New Year approaching, if there is a large-scale return to hometown, the number of cases may multiply everywhere.
Wu Zunyou: We must prevent the death dam from “breaking”
On the morning of December 17, Wu Zunyou delivered a speech at the “Finance” Annual Conference 2023. He said that this winter the epidemic will have three peaks, the first wave will last from mid-December to mid-January, mainly in cities.
The second wave, which will start from late January to mid-February next year, will be triggered by the movement of people ahead of the week-long New Year holiday. The Chinese New Year holiday will start on January 21 next year, and there will usually be a wave of hundreds of millions of people returning to their hometowns. People from all over China will take transportation to go home and reunite with their families.
Wu Zunyou said the third wave of cases would last from late February to mid-March as people returned to work after the holidays.
Cases across the country could multiply if there is a mass wave of people returning home during the Chinese New Year, he warned.
He estimated that the infection rate of the epidemic this winter is around 10% to 30%, and the case fatality rate is estimated to be between 0.09% and 0.16%. He also mentioned that in order to prevent the “break” of the death dam, one must seek medical treatment in time if the condition worsens.
Epidemic outbreak: Beijing’s medical system runs out, funeral parlors are full
At the beginning of December, a “blank paper revolution” broke out across China to oppose the zero-blocking and epidemic prevention policy, and rarely shouted the slogan “Communist Party step down”. After the protests, the authorities suddenly changed their attitude and announced the complete relaxation of epidemic prevention and control, but a major outbreak of the epidemic followed.
However, World Health Organization officials stated that the epidemic in China had spread widely before the authorities announced the relaxation of control, and the strict blockade failed to stop the spread of the epidemic.
After the CCP unpreparedly relaxed its epidemic prevention and control measures, epidemics broke out in cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen, and there were medical runs. There were long queues for fever clinics, and patients may not necessarily see a doctor after waiting for hours. Fever medicines in pharmacies were also sold out.
Beijing funeral homes and mortuaries have piled up corpses and cannot store them. The video of the long queue of trucks transporting corpses outside the Babaoshan funeral home has aroused public attention. The staff of the funeral home confirmed to the media that the cremation furnace is currently working 24 hours a day, but it is still too busy, and it takes 5 to 7 days to wait for the cremation of the remains.
On December 16, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) released a forecast that by 2023, more than 1 million people in China will die from the epidemic.
The agency predicts that the epidemic in China will peak around April 1, when the death toll will reach 322,000 and about one-third of the Chinese population will be infected.
In addition, researchers from the School of Public Health of Fudan University in Shanghai predicted in a study published in the journal Nature Medicine in July this year that if there were no restrictions, this wave of Omicron outbreaks would cause 1.55 million people to die within six months. fatalities, the peak demand in intensive care units would be 15.6 times the existing capacity.
Fever clinics in Shanghai are overcrowded
At present, large-scale nucleic acid testing in China has stopped, and officials have stopped publishing data on asymptomatic infections, making the outside world suspect that the official case data does not reflect the full scale.
After Beijing, Shanghai also saw overcrowded fever clinics in hospitals. A video posted on the Internet showed that on the weekend of December 18, there was a long queue at the fever clinic in Shanghai Hospital. Some patients said that they waited for 4 or 5 hours, and some people fainted from exhaustion.
Li Bing, a doctor at Tongji Hospital in Shanghai, told China Business Daily that even if the time for eating lunch and getting dressed and undressed is reduced to less than half an hour, there are still patients who can’t finish watching. Li Bing said that this state may continue for a long time.
Shenzhen also saw an increase in fever patients. However, on December 18, a marathon was still held in Shenzhen, and the track was crowded with people.
Some netizens said: “I can’t figure out why we have to hold a marathon in this special period…” “After the marathon, there was a full-scale outbreak. This is because I feel that the sun in Shenzhen is too slow, so add it.” “Shenzhen hospitals line up everywhere, which is an accelerated run medical resources.”
Shenzhen netizen ILChinaJie: “The epidemic situation in Shenzhen is getting more and more serious. There are more and more people in Yangyang waiting in long queues for fever clinics. Buying antigens and cold and fever medicines all depends on hand speed. N95 masks are sold in pharmacies. To 6 more than a piece, the price of ordinary medical masks has also increased significantly.”
Social media posts also showed that the subway in Xi’an, capital of Shaanxi province, was empty. The parcels at the express station in Beijing piled up like a mountain, because many couriers were infected and there was a shortage of manpower, and the goods purchased by customers online could not be delivered in time.
(Comprehensive report by reporter Luo Tingting/Editor in charge: Wen Hui)
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