pandemic
China reports the first corona deaths in over a year
A volunteer disinfects an area in the northeast Chinese metropolis of Changchun. Photo: Uncredited/CHINATOPIX/AP/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
It’s not over yet. Alarm mood in China. The coronavirus is spreading again.
For the first time since January 2021, China has reported new corona deaths outside of Hong Kong. The National Health Commission said two infected people had died in the northeastern province of Jilin as a result of their viral disease.
However, independent experts have doubts about the official information from Beijing on the number of infections and deaths. According to this, the last death to date would have been on January 25, 2021.
Regardless of the suspected understatement by state censorship, China’s authorities recently reported the highest number of infections since the end of the first corona wave in Wuhan in spring 2020. On Friday, 3870 infections were registered in a total of 16 regions of the country, not including the cases from Hong Kong are.
In an international comparison, the numbers are still low, but due to the strict zero-Covid strategy, the authorities react immediately to smaller outbreaks with curfews, mass tests, transport restrictions and quarantine regulations.
Several million Chinese are currently affected by nationwide lockdowns – including in Shenzhen and parts of Shanghai, two important economic metropolises. In the capital Beijing, several housing developments in which thousands of people live have also been cordoned off.
In the Hong Kong SAR, the corona situation has been out of control for over a month. According to official figures, more than one million of the seven and a half million inhabitants have now been infected with Corona, more than 95 percent of them during the most recent wave of infections since the beginning of February. In addition, more than 5,000 people have died from the virus, it is said.
In an international comparison, Hong Kong has a strikingly high death rate, which experts attribute primarily to the low vaccination rate among the city’s older residents. According to media reports, only every third person over the age of 80 received at least two doses of the vaccine.