Covid-19 Surge Again: China Faces Worst Wave Ever, What's Happening?

Nearly 37 million people may have been infected by Covid-19 on Tuesday in the biggest single-day spike. But the figure largely varies from the government data that states that the country recorded around 3,000 cases only, according to a report by Bloomberg. As per the estimates of the government's top health authority, this might have made the country's outbreak by far the world's largest.

Quoting from an internal meeting of China’s National Health Commission held on Wednesday, the report estimates that 248 million people in China were likely infected in the first 20 days of December this year. 

Since the easing of the Zero-COVID policy, China has been facing an exponential rise in Covid-19 cases driven by Omicron subvariant BF.7. Videos and images on social media show how the healthcare system facing a crisis as hospitals remain overburdened with people being admitted. 

While people in China are now using rapid antigen tests to detect infections, the government has stopped publishing the daily number of asymptomatic cases.

Data on China’s Covid cases

Epidemiologists have forecast that millions of people are likely to be infected with the virus in the coming few months, and millions may succumb to the virus. And the situation may worsen. 

In a rare and quickly censored acknowledgement, a senior official on Saturday said that half a million people in a single Chinese city are being infected with Covid-19 every day. However, the country's wave of infections is not being reflected in official statistics, reports AFP.

The ruling Communist Party-operated newspaper in Qingdao on Friday reported the municipal health chief as saying that the eastern city was seeing "between 490,000 and 530,000" new Covid cases a day. It added that the coastal city of around 10 million people was "in a period of rapid transmission ahead of an approaching peak".

The infection rate in the country is said to accelerate by another 10 per cent over the weekend.

The country reported the first two deaths on December 19 since the government eased the zero-Covid policy. Experts have forecast between a million and 2 million deaths in China next year, and the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that Beijing’s way of counting would “underestimate the true death toll.”

Further WHO said that it received no data from China on new Covid-19 hospitalizations since Beijing ended its zero-Covid policy. On Thursday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Beijing to share more information.

Health system under threat

Millions of elderly people in China are not fully vaccinated and as the country grapples with its first-ever national Covid-19 wave, emergency wards in small cities and towns southwest of Beijing are overwhelmed. Intensive care units are turning away ambulances, relatives of sick people are searching for open beds, and patients are slumped on benches in hospital corridors and lying on floors of a lack of beds.

Facing the sudden surge, the government is setting up more intensive care facilities and trying to strengthen hospitals as it rolled back anti-virus controls that confined millions of people to their homes, crushed economic growth and set off protests.

In a statement, the government of eastern Jiangxi province said that more than 18,000 Covid patients had been admitted to major medical institutions in the province in the two weeks up to Thursday, including nearly 500 severe cases but no deaths.

Hospitalizations peaked at 28,859 through to December 4, which is the highest reported figure in China since the start of the pandemic.

Zero-Covid policy

Following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, China set out its “zero-COVID” measures that were harsh, but not out of line with what many other countries were doing to try and contain the virus. While most other nations saw the health and safety regulations as temporary until vaccines were widely available,  China stuck steadfastly to its strategy.

Inbound travellers needed to take a PCR test before flying and quarantine in a hotel for five days and at home for three days upon the arrival. That may seem strict, but prior to updated regulations, travellers needed to take two PCR tests before flying and quarantine for seven days in a hotel and three days at home. Before that, the quarantine period was 14 days.

Travellers on domestic flights, trains or buses who were in close contact with someone with COVID-19 need to quarantine for five days at designated sites, plus three days at home. Prior to November changes, the quarantine time was longer and the close contacts of the person with close contact someone with Covid-19 also needed to isolate. People who visited areas in China deemed “high-risk” also need to quarantine for seven days at home.

Inside China, individuals need to show their personal “green code” — indicating they are COVID-19-negative — when entering public places like shopping malls and restaurants, or when using public transit.

Similarly, office buildings are locked down if someone in the building tests positive for Covid-19 until the building can be disinfected, a process that usually took several days.

Weary of the policy that confined millions of people to their homes in an attempt to isolate every infection, and with an eye on the freedoms enjoyed elsewhere around the world, protests have broken out around China in recent days.

China’s Covid rebellion

On November 26, a fire in an apartment building in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region killed 10 people and injured nine amid stringent lockdowns that left many residents in the area stuck in their homes for more than three months. The incident instantly prompted angry questions about whether firefighters or victims trying to escape were blocked by locked doors or other anti-virus controls. Authorities denied that, but the incident became a target for public frustration about the controls.

Last month, China’s President Xi Jinping faced a wave of public anger of the kind not seen for decades, sparked by his “zero Covid” strategy that was about to enter its fourth year.

Demonstrators had poured into the streets in cities including Shanghai and Beijing, criticizing the policy, confronting police — and even calling for Xi to step down. 

Most protesters have complained about excessive restrictions, but some turned their anger at Xi, China’s most powerful leader since at least the 1980s. 

People had gathered in the semi-autonomous southern city of Hong Kong, where the pro-democracy movement was all but snuffed out by a harsh crackdown following monthslong demonstrations that began in 2019.

Slogans such as “no PCR tests but freedom!” and “oppose dictatorship, don’t be slaves!” were chanted on the streets. 

In Hong Kong, protesters at Chinese University put up posters that said, “Do Not Fear. Do Not Forget. Do Not Forgive,” and sang including “Do You Hear the People Sing?” from the musical “Les Miserables.” Most hid their faces behind blank white sheets of paper.

Following the protests, the response from the authorities was largely muted. According to media reports, some police in Shanghai used pepper spray to drive away demonstrators, and some protesters were detained and driven away in a bus. However, China's vast internal security apparatus has been famed for identifying people it considers troublemakers and carting them off from their homes when few are watching.

Why the world must be concerned?

Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist and health economist, recently warned that “over 60 per cent of China's and 10 per cent of the Earth's population will likely be infected over the next 90 days” due to Covid-19.

Though the virus is primarily driving the surge in China, it has been found in the United States, Denmark, Germany, France, and India. 

Chinese experts have said that it is much more transmissible than earlier coronavirus strains. 

The BF.7 Omicron sub-variants have the "strongest infection ability" so far and pose a risk of "hidden spread", according to Beijing-based expert Li Tongzeng.

The United States said Beijing's surprise decision to let coronavirus run free was a concern for the world. “The toll of the virus is of concern to the rest of the world given the size of China’s GDP, given the size of China’s economy. It’s not only good for China to be in a stronger position vis-à-vis Covid, but it’s good for the rest of the world as well. We – the United States continue to be a leading force for countries around the world in the provision of vaccines and helping countries overcome the acute phase of the virus. We certainly hope that will be the case before long in the PRC as well," said US State Department spokesperson Ned Price.

Some scientists have warned that the unchecked spread of Covid-19 in China could spur the emergence of new variants, which might unravel the progress made globally to contain the pandemic.

Ryan said the explosive surge of cases in China was not exclusively due to the lifting of many of the country’s restrictive policies and that it was impossible to stop transmission of omicron, the most highly infectious variant yet seen of COVID-19.

To date, China has declined to authorize Western-made messenger RNA vaccines, which have proven to be more effective than locally-made shots. Beijing did agree to allow a shipment of the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine to be imported, for Germans living in China.

Further, the international health body suggested that China’s definition of Covid deaths was too narrow, saying the country was limiting it to people who have suffered respiratory failure.

(With agency inputs)