China: The deadly corona wave sweeps across the country

From zero-Covid to casual relaxation: from the explosion of Corona cases and the abrupt end of the strict zero tolerance policy in China two weeks ago the virus spread at high speed among billions of people. In many places the hospitals are full. In Beijing, crematoria come with the cremation of Killing no more after. According to estimates, hundreds of thousands of deaths are expected. But the government would rather just talk about a harmless “cold corona”.

The leap is huge: I had to infected They were still in hospitals in early December, but several major cities are already allowing them to return to work. The only requirement is that they show no or mild symptoms. Something like this happened to Guyang in southwest China: there, such a call to work has been aimed at workers in supermarkets, medical facilities, delivery services and government agencies. Party newspaper Global Times he spoke of a “better balance between epidemic prevention and social and economic development”.

Violent corona outbreak in China: politics is now fatal

After nearly three years of lockdowns, enforced quarantines, mass testing and contact tracing, the world’s most populous country had its tough day on December 7 Zero tolerance policy suddenly deleted. The reason for the turnaround was that infections with the new omicron variants weren’t as bad anymore. But the World Health Organization (WHO) saw the reason mostly in the fact that the situation was due to many Protests it got out of control and the tough measures could no longer be sustained.

The turnaround has affected them hospitals unprepared because until then there was “no strategy” for easing, as one European health expert described it. The vaccination campaign was not advanced enough. Many of the 260 million seniors over the age of 60 are not adequately protected: only 70 per cent of those over 60 and 40 per cent of those over 80 have one Syringe Booster receive. Modern foreign vaccines are not approved for political reasons. For many Chinese, it has been a long time since their last vaccination, so the disease hits them hard.

Instead of expanding hospitals and creating more intensive care beds, there were more quarantine camp built for tens of thousands. Furthermore, no stockpiles of medicines had been built up. Fever and cold medicines or rapid tests ran out soon after the easing. Even after two weeks there is still a shortage of supplies: “We Chinese are too many,” explains one pharmacist their shelves empty.

Official figures for infectious situation it no longer exists, but according to rough estimates, more than half of Beijing’s 21 million people alone are ill. Many restaurants, businesses, shops, banks have closed. First weeks of lockdown now sick employees: Many shops and restaurants have not survived economically, as evidenced by the glued windows in shopping centers.

Karl Lauterbach is also worried about China

German Health Minister Carl Lauterbach he described the current situation in China as “very worrying,” he wrote in a tweet. In it you also shared a post by the Chinese epidemiologist Eric Feigl-Dingwhich speaks of a severe overload of clinics and the threat of “millions of deaths”: “This is only the beginning”, concludes the contribution of Eric Feigl-Ding.

That US Department of State he also warned that the rise in Chinese corona cases could impact overseas as well, such as where trade relations with China are affected. A spokesman also called the danger new mutations and spoke of a “threat to people everywhere”.

The Chinese government downplays the seriousness of the corona situation

The Chinese leadership has had its way for a long time Null-Covid strategy hailed as a sign of the systemic superiority of the communist system over Western societies. People were urgently warned of the dangers of the corona virus and the resulting damage. But now that the measures they are no longer effective and the price for the second largest economy is rising, the risk and severity of the disease are downplayed with similar vehemence, and the previous policy is defended as “completely correct”.

The state Propaganda he never tires of saying that the turnaround, or rather “optimization”, as it is euphemistically called, has come “at the right time” – regardless of the cold winter season. The pandemic is now “controllable”, he says. “A full comeback normality can be expected in the spring,” he wants Chinese newspaper Give hope.

But before three crown waves roll across the country, as experts predict. The first will affect urban areas by mid-January. The second will follow in mid-February when hundreds of millions of people will come from the Chinese New Year’s party traditionally they will travel to their home villages on January 22. With the return of travelers, the third wave of infections is expected by mid-March. Eventually, 80-90% of China’s 1.4 billion people are expected to be infected.

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