Beijing, Jan 26 (EFE).- Critical covid cases in China fell by 72% at the end of January compared to the end of December, at the peak of infections, and daily deaths in hospitals fell by 79% , according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of the Asian country.
According to the CDC, the peak of infections took place on December 22 of last year, shortly after the authorities dismantled the strict ‘zero covid’ policy.
Hospital deaths reached their daily peak on January 4, at 4,273, but by January 23, the number had dropped to 896, down 79%, according to the CDC.
The number of patients in critical condition reached its peak on January 5, with 128,000 cases, and fell to 36,000 on the 23rd of that month, representing a 72% reduction.
On January 23, the number of visits to fever clinics fell to 63,000, while visits to clinics in rural areas peaked on December 23 at 922,000 before falling to 50,000 on January 23.
Last Sunday, the chief epidemiologist of the CDC, Wu Zunyou, assured that 80% of the population of China contracted the covid during the wave of infections after the dismantling of the national zero tolerance policy against the coronavirus.
Taking into account the recent official population estimate of some 1,411.75 million people in the country at the end of 2022, the percentage offered by the epidemiologist would place the number of cases at about 1,129.4 million.
The figure exceeds the estimate offered a little over a week ago by a Peking University study, which spoke of some 900 million infections until January 11.
In recent weeks, some voices have questioned the veracity of the figures offered by China, which at the moment acknowledges almost 73,000 deaths of covid patients in hospitals between December 8 and January 19.
This balance of deaths contrasts with estimates such as those of the British health sector analysis company Airfinity, which recently assured that some 36,000 deaths could be reached per day during the Lunar New Year holidays -from January 21 to 27- in China.
After almost three years of harsh restrictions, confinements and practically total closure of borders that ended up crystallizing in protests in various parts of the country, China began to dismantle the ‘zero covid’ at the beginning of December, and on January 8 it reduced the category A -level of maximum danger- to B the management of the disease, thus marking the end of this strategy in practice. EFE
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