Any chance of China emerging sooner rather than later from its latest mass coronavirus outbreak is slim as 80 percent of the country’s population has been infected, a prominent government scientist warned Saturday.
Reuters reports Wu Zunyou, the chief epidemiologist at the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said the mass movement of people during the current Lunar New Year holiday period may spread the pandemic, boosting infections in some areas.
A second coronavirus wave is unlikely in the next two to three months, he predicted, on the basis so many now have the infection and the multiple sub-branches of the Omicron strain “has already infected 80 percent of the population” Wu Zunyou was quoted as saying on the Weibo social media platform.
Wu’s statement came as hundreds of millions of Chinese people travelled across the country for holiday reunions that had been suspended under recently eased COVID-19 curbs.
Elderly patients are checked as they arrive at an emergency hall of a hospital in Beijing, Thursday, Jan. 19, 2023. China on Thursday accused “some Western media” of bias, smears and political manipulation in their coverage of China’s abrupt ending of its strict “zero-COVID” policy. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)
A woman wearing a face mask walks by empty coffins placed at a mortuary of a hospital in Beijing, Friday, Jan. 6, 2023. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)
Nearly 60,000 people with coronavirus had died in hospital as of January 12, according to government data cited by Reuters, roughly a month after China abruptly dismantled its zero-coronavirus national policy.
But some experts said that figure probably vastly undercounts the full effect and the full number may never be known, as government statistics excludes those who die at home and because many doctors have said they are discouraged from citing coronavirus as a cause of death.
China has suspended or closed the social media accounts of more than 1,000 critics of the Communist government’s policies on the coronavirus outbreak, as the country moves to further open up while denying any setbacks or associated health risks for the population.
An elderly patient watches a medical worker check on a woman as they receive intravenous drips in an emergency coronavirus treatment ward in Beijing, Thursday, Jan. 19, 2023. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)
Just last month British analytics company Airfinity published a report estimating some 5,000 people were dying in China a day as a result of Chinese coronavirus infections – a significantly higher number than the seven Chinese government officials admitted to all week, as Breitbart News reported.
The scientific estimate, based on analyses of hospitals and cases in the country, preceded a report published by Bloomberg claiming internal Chinese government documents show a staggering 37,000 coronavirus infections being documented a day in the country with no end in sight.
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