Chinese provinces claim to have waded Covid-19 infection peak

Beijing, Jan 10 (EFE).- Several provinces in China announced the Covid-19 infections wave has reached its peak in provinces such as Henan, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Canton, Sichuan and Hainan, local press reported Tuesday.

Meanwhile, in Beijing, its mayor said in an interview with state television CCTV that the capital surpassed the peak of infections and that “a new immunity” had been achieved, adding that the city still faces “a difficult task in the treatment of severe cases.”

Officials from other cities such as Chongqing, said admissions to hospitals due to Covid-19 “reduced drastically after Dec. 20,” and that the municipality exceeded the peak of infections between Dec. 12 and Dec. 23 according to the official newspaper Global Times.

However, Chinese experts said they expect the virus to hit rural areas during the Lunar New Year holidays, the world’s largest annual migration and which this year will be held between Jan. 21 and Jan. 27.

Usually, many migrant workers return to their hometowns to spend the holidays with their families, which will cause “the spread of the epidemic to accelerate,” according to scientists.

The travel season for the Lunar New Year officially began Saturday with an increase in the number of trips, which have been facilitated since the authorities dismantled the ‘zero Covid-19” policy in December.

Trips that day reached 34.7 million, a growth of 38.9 percent compared to the equivalent day of 2022.

In mid-December, the State Council asked local governments to give priority to health services in rural areas “to protect the population,” pointing out “their relative scarcity of healthcare resources” and high mobility during the holidays.

The rapid spread of the virus across the country has cast doubt on the reliability of official figures, which reported only a handful of recent deaths from the disease despite localities and provinces estimating that a significant proportion of their populations – in some cases, up to 90 percent – has been infected.

Covid-19 stopped being classed in China as a category A-level disease of maximum danger, whose containment requires the most severe measures. It is now classed as a Category B disease, which allows a more lax control, marking in practice the end of the “zero Covid-19” policy, withdrawn by authorities after protests took place. EFE

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