Hundreds of millions of infections and an indefinite number of deaths. An unprecedented wave of Covid is sweeping China and even if official data speak of a few tens of thousands of sick people, the filtering reality is another. It was the deputy director of the Chinese center for control and prevention Sun Yang, according to the Financial Times, who provided during a closed-door meeting the estimate of 250 million new patients in the first 20 days of December, equal to 18% of the total population. A figure in marked contrast to the official numbers provided by the National Health Commission which, in the same period of time, spoke of 62,592 cases. The rate of spread of Covid, specified Sun Yang, is further increasing and in all likelihood more than half of the population of Beijing and Sichuan have already been infected. A situation that risks spiraling completely out of control starting in January, with the long Chinese New Year holidays, when hundreds of millions of people move across the country. On the number of dead it is pitch dark. The authorities have spoken of only 8 deaths since December 1 and in recent days have changed the definition of death from covid in order to reduce the number of deaths attributable to the virus. The reality that emerges from the testimonies of foreign journalists, from funeral homes and from the leap in the workload of the practically collapsing crematoriums is another.
Yesterday, AFP ascertained, in a single crematorium in Chongqing, a city of over 30 million inhabitants in the southwest of the country, 40 bodies were discharged in two hours. At the People’s Hospital number 5 of the same metropolis, now packed, even the main entrance hall has been transformed into a Covid ward. Same scenes in a hospital in Shanghai, again according to AFP, where the reception and corridors have become makeshift dormitories to welcome the sick. Meanwhile, a rush across China for do-it-yourself kits and basic medicines after patients with mild symptoms were invited to be treated at home. Pharmacies are also out of stock because the government has requisitioned supplies to supply hospitals. Already three days ago the Chinese authorities, in a fluctuating flow of information given and denied, had admitted that it is “impossible” for the system to trace the number of new infected after the easing of the severe restrictions and lockdowns in force since 2020 following of the protests of people exasperated by the police management of the pandemic.
The wave of infections risks triggering new mutations, many experts outside the country have observed. A request for greater transparency has come from the United States. “It is important for all countries, including China, to focus on vaccinations, making tests and treatments available and it is important to share information with the world because the implications” go beyond China, the secretary said yesterday of US State Antony Blinken. An appeal that, as in the past, will probably go unheard.