Infected patients, most of them elderly, lie on stretchers and receive oxygen in wheelchairs in a hospital hall amid a surge in COVID-19 in the Chinese capital, Beijing. Chuyanglu Hospital, located in the east of the city, is full of new patients on Thursday. Not a single bed was vacant till midday, even as ambulances were seen busy bringing in the needy. Authorities have been advised to avoid visiting relatives in hospital and travel between the two cities.
Similar appeals have been issued by Shaoxian county in Anhui province to the southeast of Beijing and the cities of Qingyang in Gansu province to the northwest and Weifang in Shandong on the east coast. The notice from the Weifang government said that local residents should celebrate the holiday with videos and phones.
40% of China’s population infected with Corona
Meanwhile, Asia Times, citing medical experts, reported that at least 40 percent of the Chinese population was infected with Covid-19 over the past month amid a rising number of cases in the country. China’s epidemiologist Zeng Guang said that in most of the cities of the country, 50 percent of the people’s Covid report had come positive and in such a situation it would not be wrong to estimate that about 40 percent of the country’s population is corona infected. English news based in Hong Kong gave this information.
The speed of spread of corona is more than expected
At the same time, according to Liang Wanyan, another Chinese epidemiologist and former head of the Covid response expert team of the Chinese National Health Commission, it is very difficult to tell the death rate due to the current epidemic. The Chinese epidemiologist said that the exact figure would be available only after the end of the corona. Zeng Guang, a former chief scientist and doctoral supervisor at the Chinese Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said the virus is spreading faster than expected in China.
According to an internal document of the Chinese CDC, between December 1 and December 20, about 240 million people were infected with the corona virus. Asia Times reported that till now, the total number of Covid infections globally has reached around 660 million, while more than 6 million people have died.
