China hits COVID peak, but Lunar New Year travel may cause a new wave
China’s health ministry announced that the number of critical COVID patients has already peaked, but official data has yet to mollify public concerns about the swell of anticipated infections over the Lunar New Year holiday.
China has passed the peak period of COVID patients in need of critical care, according to health officials, as concern grows over the spread of the virus during the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday period.
China recorded a 44.3% drop in the number of critically ill COVID patients in hospitals on January 17 compared with a peak seen on January 5, the National Health Commission (NHC) said at a press conference (in Chinese) today. The number of visits to fever clinics and emergency rooms also declined.
- Vice Premier Liú Hè 刘鹤, Beijing’s top economic official, made a similar announcement at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, saying that China’s economy will likely rebound to pre-pandemic levels this year after passing a peak in infections.
On Saturday, China said nearly 60,000 people with COVID had died in hospitals between December 8 and January 12. The NHC had released the information to the World Health Organization (WHO) amid speculation that its official data was underrepresenting the extent of infections since Beijing axed COVID-zero controls last month in a shocking policy U-turn.
- Among those fatalities, 90% were 65 or older. The average age was 80.3 years.
- The deaths have sparked public anger at the failure to protect the elderly.
The data comes right on the eve of the Lunar New Year holidays, which marks the biggest annual migration of people in the world. Chinese President Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 expressed concern yesterday about the spread of COVID over the holiday period, particularly in rural areas that are less equipped to handle a surge in infections from urbanites headed back home.
- China’s Ministry of Transport has anticipated that the number of trips during the holiday travel rush will reach 2.1 billion, double the amount last year, and about 70% of the pre-pandemic levels in 2019.
- Over half of those trips are expected to be driven by family reunions.
Censors are also cracking down on COVID talk to prevent “gloomy sentiments” over the holidays, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) said in a statement (in Chinese), in a bid to “prevent misleading the public and causing social panic.”
- Authorities will step up investigation and punishment of “online rumors related to the epidemic” and “fabricating patient experiences,” as well as any false prophets pushing fake virus treatments.
- The censorship crackdown comes amid a frenzy of social media posts, many of which describe personal accounts that seem to contradict official narratives and numbers reported by state media.
The dismantling of COVID zero has also ignited labor protests from pandemic-control workers this past month, as virus-testing companies struggle to pay or retain their employees due to plummeting demand.
- Workers in the Chinese cities of Chongqing and Hangzhou have clashed with local police over unpaid wages. Some videos show angry employees standing on top of piles of discarded testing kits and throwing them about, while other clips show hoards of workers chanting “Pay me back!”
Meanwhile, Hong Kong will ditch mandatory quarantine for people infected with COVID on January 30, but will still require people to wear masks, as the city dismantles the last remnants of its COVID-zero restrictions. Government officials have been hell-bent on reviving the financial hub, which has been battered by pandemic rules and political unrest since 2019.
- “This is one of the important steps toward normalcy,” Hong Kong leader John Lee (李家超 Lǐ Jiāchāo) said on Thursday.
