- Catherine Armstrong
- BBC news
A senior Chinese health official said he believed China was experiencing the first of three expected waves of COVID-19 infection this winter.
The country has seen an increase in the number of infections since it lifted its toughest restrictions earlier this month.
The latest official statistics appear to show a relatively low number of new daily cases.
But there are concerns that these numbers may be underreported due to the recent drop in COVID-19 testing.
The Chinese government announced just 2,097 new daily cases on Sunday.
Epidemiologist Wu Zunyou said he believes the current surge in the number of infections will continue until mid-January, but the second wave will begin with the impact of the travel season in January as the Lunar New Year celebrations approach a week, starting on January 21st. .
Millions of people usually travel during this time to spend their holidays with their families.
Dr Wu said the third wave of cases will start from the end of February and continue until mid-March when people return to work after the holiday season.
He told Saturday’s conference that current levels of vaccination have provided some level of protection against spikes in infections and led to a decline in the number of severe cases.
In all, China says more than 90% of its citizens are fully vaccinated. But less than half of people aged 80 and older received three doses of the vaccine.
And older adults are more likely to develop severe symptoms of COVID-19.
China had developed and manufactured its own vaccines, which have proven to be less effective at protecting people from severe Corona virus infections and death than the “mRNA” vaccines used in most other countries around the world.
Dr Wu’s comments come after a US research institute said earlier this week that it believed China could see more than 1 million COVID-19 deaths in 2023 following a massive increase in the number of infections .
The government has not officially reported any Covid-19 deaths since December 7, when restrictions were lifted after popular protests against the “zero Covid” policy. This included stopping mass checks.
However, anecdotal reports of Covid-related deaths have emerged in the capital, Beijing.
Hospitals there and in other cities are struggling to absorb the wave of injuries, which has also hit postal and food services hard.
