According to a research, as many as 248 million individuals in China got the coronavirus within the first 20 days of December.
According to government estimations, hundreds of millions of individuals in China were likely infected with COVID-19 in the first roughly three weeks of this month.
According to minutes from a National Health Commission internal meeting, as many as 248 million individuals got the coronavirus in the first 20 days of December, Bloomberg News reported on Friday.
According to the minutes, about 37 million people may have been infected on Tuesday. This is a significant increase from the official number of 3,049 illnesses declared by the government that day.
Since the big coronavirus surge began, China has made various modifications to how it records COVID-19 instances and deaths, and it has eased its stringent “zero COVID” goal.
Because the nation no longer counts asymptomatic cases in its official figures, the country’s daily infection toll is a significant underestimate of the real spread. This week, it also revealed its limited definition for COVID-19 deaths, with a Chinese health official stating that the government only registers deaths from pneumonia or respiratory failure.
The official COVID-19 death toll in China is over 5,200. Throughout the epidemic, the country’s low reporting rate has been called into doubt.
Such a definition, according to public health experts, including those at the World Health Organization, is excessively limited.
“People who die with COVID die from several distinct (organ) system breakdowns,” WHO’s Mike Ryan stated during a press briefing on Wednesday. “As a result, restricting a COVID-related mortality diagnosis to someone with a COVID-positive test and respiratory failure dramatically underestimates the real COVID death toll.”
During the press conference, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated that the agency requires additional information from China on the severity of its cases, particularly information on hospital and critical care unit admissions.
“The WHO is quite worried about the changing situation in China, which is seeing an increase in reports of serious sickness,” Tedros added.
