Corona pandemic in China: infections rise to a two-year high

China reports more corona infections than it has in two years. Most recently, 402 local infections were discovered – almost twice as many as the day before. Does the zero-Covid strategy still make sense?

While most countries in the world have started living with the Corona virus, China is still fighting it. The country is sticking to a strict zero-Covid strategy. But infections are increasing in China and are higher than they have been in two years. What’s going on there?

Outbreaks spread across the country

More than 400 locally transmitted corona infections have now been reported across the country, which means that the number has almost doubled compared to the previous day. What is striking is that it is no longer just individual cities or regions that are affected, but that the outbreaks are spread across the whole country.

The list of affected cities has become very long and that makes the Chinese authorities nervous. They react with mass tests, contact tracing and partial lockdowns in districts or individual neighborhoods.

Currently no complete lockdown

And in the largest metropolis in Shanghai, for example, there are outbreaks in several districts. Hundreds of thousands of people are in lockdown there and are being tested by the authorities. In the past, some cities have already been completely sealed off in a few single-digit cases. At the moment there is no evidence that this is currently the case, although the number of cases is very high in some cities and regions.

In the Jilin region alone, for example, there are 165 corona cases that were last officially reported per day.

Officially only the local cases

How much can you actually trust the Chinese numbers? You really have to look closely. The Chinese authorities officially only count the locally transmitted cases that lead to symptoms of Covid19 disease. Not included are asymptomatic cases transmitted locally and cases attributed to foreign countries. These figures are published separately. If you add that, that would be more than 700 additional cases in one day that do not appear in the official statistics.

Plan how China could live with the virus

Otherwise, you always have to be careful with official figures in China, as it is always in the interest of the central government, but also of the governments at provincial level, to publish satisfactory figures. At least the trends in the Covid numbers will be correct, because Covid outbreaks have consequences that you would see in the hospitals at the latest – and that would then fall on governments’ toes.

Can China continue to stick to the zero-Covid strategy? That will now show. There are early signs that China is rethinking its previous strategy. For example, the former chief scientist at the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention wrote this week on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter: China would present a plan at the right time in the near future on how the People’s Republic could live with the virus. Chinese style.

Zero Covid strategy in Hong Kong failed

And it is also noticeable that there is currently no evidence that entire cities are being cordoned off given the currently comparatively high number of cases. That has been the case up until now. You can also see in Hong Kong at the same time that the zero-Covid strategy failed there with the Omicron wave. The special administrative region is currently reporting almost 30,000 cases a day. In addition, the number of deaths has increased rapidly in the past three weeks.

In Hong Kong, many older people in particular are not vaccinated. And now, with mainland China’s help, Hong Kong is trying to get infections under control. Among other things, the Chinese central government in Beijing is sending medical staff to Hong Kong. And construction workers are also coming to Hong Kong from mainland China to build makeshift container hospitals because Hong Kong’s healthcare system is overburdened.