Nearly 90% of the inhabitants of the third most populous province of China have been infected with Covid 19. It is a local official who affirms it while the cases of contamination are expected to increase further with the departures on New Year’s vacation. lunar.
From our correspondent in Beijing, Stephane Lagarde
Central government no longer publishes daily epidemic report and it is the data communicated by the regions that make it possible to take the measure of the wave of contamination that has swept over China, since the abandonment of the zero-Covid policy a month ago.
According to Kan Quancheng, nearly 90% of the 100 million inhabitants of Henan would have already been infected on January 6th. The rate of infection with the Omicron BA.5.2 subvariant in the province was then 89.1% in urban areas and 88.9% in rural areas, said the director of the provincial health commission. However, it is the countryside that is now preparing to welcome city dwellers for the Spring Festival holidays.
► To read also: End of “zero Covid” in China: “Great concern in rural areas”
Epidemic peak exceeded
The bulk of the epidemic has passed according to the authorities who want to be reassuring before this traditional event which brings families together after the change of the moon. The peak of the epidemic would have been crossed locally around December 19, with a record crowd in the “fever clinics”. Since then, the overall number of cases has been declining.
But hospitals remain under pressure with many patients showing severe symptoms of viral pneumonia, the Henan health commission official added at a press conference. Figures that add to those published by a newspaper in the port of Qingdao, in the eastern province of Shandong. The local official daily revealed that nearly 250 million Chinese had been infected on December 20. The article has since been censored.
Later, health officials in eastern China’s Zhejiang province spoke of morea million contaminations per day in a territory with as many inhabitants as Italy. Statistical models even projected two million people infected daily around the time of the Lunar New Year holiday, the first starts of which began this weekend.
99.5% more trips
Two billion trips are expected to be made in China during these first “Spring Festival” holidays without health restrictions, an increase of 99.5% over the same period last year, said Xu Chengguang. The Chinese vice-minister of transport recalls, however, that this is still only 70% of the trips recorded in 2019, before the start of the pandemic. That’s not to mention travel abroad.
The opening of the Chinese borders on Sunday January 8 was one of the last steps the dismantling of the disease prevention and control policy that had been in effect for three years. The China Central Television reported that direct flights to and from South Korea were sold out during the spring vacation common to Confucian-style countries.
► To read also: China: opening of post-Covid-19 borders variously appreciated