Daily coronavirus cases drop to below 32,000 in China
Beijing, Dec 4 (EFE).- The number of daily Covid-19 infections in China has dropped compared to past few days, with health officials finding just under 32,000 cases a day ago, officials reported on Sunday.
The National Health Commission reported that 31,824 people tested positive for the virus on Saturday.
Asymptomatic patients made up 27,611 of the new cases (87 percent). The virus also caused two deaths.
The majority of the symptomatic 4,213 patients contracted the virus locally. Most of them were found in Canton (1,868), Beijing (708), and Chongqing (260).
The regions also added most of the asymptomatic cases (27,611), even though the health authorities do not count such infections in the list of Covid-19 patients.
The health commission indicated that 45 symptomatic and 178 asymptomatic patients were travelers from abroad.
The country has over 390,000 patients under medical observation for being asymptomatic carriers.
China has followed a harsh “zero Covid” policy but still suffered waves of outbreaks in recent months due to the more contagious omicron variant of the virus.
The strain has caused record numbers of infections not seen since the pandemic began in the first half of 2020.
The National Health Commission said more than 3,300 patients were discharged after successfully overcoming covid on Saturday.
The number of active patients with symptoms in mainland China now stands at 40,228, 111 of whom are critical.
The harsh covid restriction has triggered protests in several cities in China.
Cantón, with thousands of daily new cases, has seen riots between residents of neighborhoods affected by outbreaks and security forces dressed in PPE suits.
Many cities have closed PCR sampling booths and reduced the frequency of testing people, which might have resulted in fewer new infections.
According to the authorities, since the pandemic started, the country has registered a total of 336,165 infections, which excludes asymptomatic people.
The virus has claimed 5,235 deaths in China.
The authorities say that medical follow-up has been carried out on some 13.7 million close contacts of infected people, of which more than two million are quarantined. EFE
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