With people’s dissatisfaction growing, China abandoned the main pillars of its “zero Covid” policy to contain the epidemic earlier this month and reversed the lockdowns, tests, quarantines and travel restrictions affecting the Chinese economy.
Cities across China are struggling to stem a tide of infections that has emptied pharmacy shelves and filled hospital rooms and cremation centers.
But the abolition of these measures has made it nearly impossible to track the number of infections, while the authorities have changed their approach to defining deaths due to Corona, in a move that experts say aims to reduce the numbers related to deaths caused by from the Corona virus.
And the death toll now only includes people who died of respiratory failure directly related to “Corona”. A methodology that, according to experts, aims to reduce the number of deaths attributed to the epidemic.
And in Qingdao, a media outlet run by the ruling Communist Party quoted the municipal health director on Friday as saying the city in the east of the country is seeing “between 490,000 and 530,000” new cases of “Corona” every day.
Bo Tao, whose statements were published in the article, said the coastal city, which has a population of about 10 million, is seeing “a phase of rapid spread of the infection before it approaches its peak.” “.
He added: “The same official said the infection rate will accelerate by another 10% over the weekend.”
Several other media outlets carried the story, which was edited Saturday morning to remove the numbers from it.
On Saturday, China’s health ministry announced that “4,103 new infections were recorded across the country on Friday, but there were no deaths.”
In Shandong, the province where Qingdao is located, the authorities have officially reported only 31 new local infections.
The Chinese government tightly controls the country’s media, with strict internet censorship costing to remove any content deemed politically sensitive.
Most government media downplayed the severity of the new Corona wave. Instead, he described the “COVID label” policy change as logical and accurate.
Media reports have reported medicine shortages and pressure on hospitals, but estimates of the actual number of injured remain slim.
And the government of Jiangxi province (east of the country) predicted, in a social media post on Friday, that 80% of its population – or about 36 million people – would be infected with the virus until March.
He added that more than 18,000 “Covid” patients had been admitted to major hospitals in the province in the two weeks to Thursday, including about 500 serious cases, but no deaths had been recorded.
