Finance
According to a prominent government scientist, Covid-19 has now infected eight out of ten people in China.
According to CNN, Wu Zunyou, the chief epidemiologist of China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the current “wave of epidemic has already infected about 80% of the people” in the country of 1.4 billion people.
His claim came amid fears that the travel rush around the Lunar New Year holiday period, dubbed the “world’s largest human migration,” could spread the virus to the countryside and cause a second wave of infections, CNN reported.
However, Wu stated on his personal social media account that this scenario was unlikely because so many people had already discovered it.
“In the next two to three months, the possibility of a large-scale Covid-19 rebound or a second wave of infections across the country is very small,” Wu said.
According to CNN, China’s Ministry of Transport estimates that over 2 billion passenger trips will take place during the 40-day Lunar New Year season as people across the country return to their hometowns for family reunions for the first time since the pandemic began over three years ago, with no domestic travel restrictions.
According to CCTV, more than 26 million passenger trips were made on the eve of the Lunar New Year on Sunday.
This is only half the number of travelers on the same day in 2019, prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, but it is 50.8 percent higher than in 2022, according to the report.
On the day before the start of Lunar New Year, more than 4.1 million people traveled by train and 756,000 by air for holiday reunions, CCTV added.
According to CNN, the country’s road transportation system recorded more than 20 million passenger trips on the same day, which is 55.1 percent more than the number from 2022.
According to CCTV, China’s transportation system had handled over 560 million passenger trips in the first 15 days of the 40-day ongoing Spring Festival travel rush via rail, highway, water, and air, an increase of 47.9% from the same period last year.
Previously, research from Peking University’s National School of Development suggested that more than 900 million people, or 64% of the Chinese population, were “likely” to be infected with Covid-19 as of January 11, CNN reported.
According to the university’s research, the epidemic peaked across much of the country on December 20, just 13 days after China relaxed its Covid restrictions.
According to the study, infections had peaked across the country by the end of December.
Chinese health officials made similar claims on Thursday, claiming that fever clinic visits and Covid hospitalizations in China have declined since their peaks in late December and early January, respectively.
According to officials, the number of Covid patients requiring critical care in hospitals has also reached a peak.
According to government data, nearly 60,000 people with Covid died in Chinese hospitals between December 8 and January 12 after China abruptly scrapped its “zero-Covid” policies, CNN reported.
According to an internal estimate from the country’s top health officials, nearly 250 million people in China may have contracted Covid in the first 20 days of December.
Source:IANS
