Abroad worried about mutations
China threatens millions of deaths from corona
12/20/2022 15:34
After the sudden move away from the zero-Covid policy, China is facing a tsunami of infections. Experts predict two million deaths. Beijing denounces five and hides the intense activity from the crematoria. Especially foreign countries fear mutations.
After China’s move away from the strict “zero Covid policy”, worries are growing about a gigantic wave of coronavirus with hundreds of millions of people infected in the People’s Republic within weeks and millions of deaths. Cities across the country are therefore working at full speed to create more hospital beds and more treatment capacity. The decision by President Xi Jinping’s government to ease the previously strict regime has caught the healthcare system completely unprepared.
Other countries are also concerned, including about the possible impact on the economy and trade. A spokesman for the US State Department stressed the danger that a large-scale spread of Covid in China could lead to further dangerous mutations of the virus. This is “a threat to people everywhere”. Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach spoke on Twitter about a “very worrying situation in China”.
Since the outbreak of the pandemic in early 2020, China has locked down entire cities in case of small outbreaks of the coronavirus. But in early December, the strict course was relaxed after protests against the restrictions also called for the overthrow of President Xi, an event never seen before in China. Now some clinics are overcrowded, pharmacies are empty and many people are self-isolating.
“People stay away because they are sick”
In Beijing, which has become the main hotbed of the infection, commuters – sometimes coughing into face masks – have taken trains back to work. The streets have come alive after being largely deserted recently. In Shanghai, however, the subways were only half full. “People stay away because they’re sick or afraid of getting sick,” said Yang, a trainer at a nearly empty city gym. “But I think the main reason they’re staying away now is because they’re really sick.”
“Each new epidemic wave in another country carries the risk of new variants, and this risk is all the higher, the bigger the epidemic,” also described Alex Cook, public health expert at the National University of Singapore . for the world community. “And the current wave in China has what it takes to be big.” However, China must inevitably endure a large wave of the coronavirus if it is to achieve an endemic status of its population and a future without lockdowns during the coronavirus outbreaks.
The government reported five new deaths linked to the virus, down from two on Monday. According to official information, it was the first corona death in weeks. Overall, China, with its population of around 1.4 billion, has reported just 5,242 coronavirus-related deaths since the outbreak of the pandemic in early 2020, a negligible number by global comparison. The USA alone has reported more than a million corona deaths, in Germany there are more than 160,000.
Security forces in front of the crematoria
But doubts about Chinese statistics are growing. In Beijing, for example, security forces stood at the entrance to a crematorium where Reuters reporters on Saturday saw many hearses and workers in protective suits carrying the dead inside. Some health experts estimate that 60 percent of the population in China – equivalent to 10 percent of the world’s population – could be infected in the coming months and more than two million people could die.
The virus is also weighing on China’s economy, which is expected to grow by just three percent this year, the smallest increase in nearly half a century. Sickness of factory workers and truck drivers slows down production and tears through logistical gaps. This can also be heard all over the world. Health Minister Lauterbach referred to a Twitter post that a wave of the coronavirus with millions of deaths was likely to hit China in the next 90 days. “This is just the beginning,” the shared tweet said. A video was also linked there showing unconscious people on ventilators in cramped hospital beds and sometimes lying on the floor.
