After the sudden departure from the zero-Covid policy, China is facing an infection tsunami. Experts expect two million dead. Beijing reports five and hides the brisk activity at the crematoria. Above all, foreign countries fear mutations.
After China’s departure from the strict “zero Covid policy” there are growing concerns about a gigantic corona wave with hundreds of millions of people infected in the People’s Republic within weeks – and millions of deaths. Cities across the country are therefore working flat out to create additional hospital beds and additional treatment capacities. The decision by President Xi Jinping’s government to relax the previously extremely strict regime has caught the health system completely unprepared.
Other countries are also concerned, not least because of the possible impact on the economy and trade. A spokesman for the US State Department pointed out the danger that a large-scale spread of Covid in China could lead to further, dangerous mutations of the virus. It is “a threat to people everywhere”. Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach spoke on Twitter of a “very worrying situation in China”.
After the outbreak of the pandemic at the beginning of 2020, China sealed off entire cities in the event of minor corona outbreaks. But at the beginning of December, the strict course was relaxed after protests against the restrictions also demanded the fall of President Xi – a previously unheard-of event in China. Now some clinics are overcrowded, pharmacies are empty and many people are self-isolating.
In Beijing, which has become the main focus of infection, commuters – sometimes coughing into their masks – took the trains to work again. The streets came alive after having been largely deserted recently. In Shanghai, on the other hand, the subways were only half full. “People stay away because they are sick or afraid of getting sick,” said Yang, a trainer at a nearly empty gym in the city. “But I think the main reason they’re staying away now is because they’re actually sick.”
“Every new epidemic wave in another country carries the risk of new variants, and this risk is all the higher, the bigger the outbreak is,” Alex Cook, public health expert at the National University of Singapore, described the dangers of the opening also for the world community. “And the current wave in China has what it takes to be big.” However, China must inevitably endure a major corona wave if it wants to achieve an endemic state of its population and a future without lockdowns during corona outbreaks.
The government reported five new deaths linked to the virus, down from two on Monday. According to official information, it was the first corona death in weeks. Overall, China, with its approximately 1.4 billion inhabitants, has reported only 5,242 corona-related deaths since the outbreak of the pandemic at the beginning of 2020 – a negligible number in a global comparison. The USA alone has reported more than a million corona deaths, in Germany there are more than 160,000.
But there are growing doubts about China’s statistics. In Beijing, for example, security forces were standing at the entrance to a crematorium where Reuters journalists had seen many hearses and workers in protective suits carrying the dead inside on Saturday. Some health experts estimate that 60 percent of the population in China – equivalent to 10 percent of the world’s population – could become infected in the coming months and more than two million people could die.
The virus is also weighing on China’s economy, which is expected to grow by just three percent this year – the smallest increase in almost half a century. The illness of workers and truck drivers slows down production and tears gaps in logistics. This can also be felt worldwide. Health Minister Lauterbach referred to a post on Twitter that a corona wave with millions of deaths would probably come over China in the next 90 days. “This is just the beginning,” the shared tweet said. A video was also linked there that showed unconscious people on ventilators in cramped hospital beds and sometimes lying on the floor.
