Xi Jinping calls for measures to ‘protect’ lives amid rapidly rising COVID-19 cases in China

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday urged authorities to take measures to “effectively protect” the lives of its citizens in the face of the spread of Covid-19, in his first press release since Beijing eased health restrictions.

According to the state-run CCTV channel, Xi said, “We must launch a more targeted patriotic health campaign to strengthen epidemic prevention and control and effectively protect people’s lives, safety and health.”

Three years after the first cases of covid-19 were detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan (centre), the government removed most of the stringent measures in support of the “covid zero” policy without notice in the context of growing discomfort. part of the population and the strong impact of this policy on the economy of the Asian giant.

But since then, the Asian country has faced an explosive increase in the number of people infected with the virus.

Many hospitals are overcrowded and pharmacies are short of medicines.

In addition, officials at several crematoriums reported to AFP a sharp increase in the number of bodies.

“The prevention and control of COVID-19 in China faces a new situation and new challenges,” Xi Jinping was quoted by CCTV television on Monday.

China announced on Sunday that it will no longer publish statistics on Covid, which has been widely criticized for the huge gap between the official figures and the current wave of epidemics hitting the country.

controversial balance sheet

Until now, almost mandatory PCR tests have made it possible to reliably follow the epidemiological trend. But infected people now self-test at home and rarely report results to authorities, hampering a true count.

China, the world’s most populous country, has only officially recognized six deaths from Covid-19 since restrictions were lifted.

But analysts think the balance is much lower than the actual death toll in a country where large numbers of seniors are not vaccinated against covid-19.

Chinese citizens can see the stark difference between the official statistics, where there are only cases, and the increased infections and even deaths of people close to them.

The Guangzhou (southern) megalopolis, with a population of 19 million, announced that funerals were postponed “after January 10”.

Another source of controversy is the authorities’ new recount methodology, which predicts that only people who die from covid-related respiratory failure will be counted as dead by the disease.

However, some local governments have begun to offer estimates of the extent of the pandemic.

Health officials in Zhejiang (east), south of Shanghai, stated that the daily number of infections in this 65 million-populated state has exceeded one million.

According to municipal sources cited by the official press, half a million people are infected every day in Qingdao (east), a city of ten million inhabitants.

In the capital Beijing, officials on Saturday acknowledged “a large number of infected people” and urged “to do everything possible to improve the recovery rate and reduce the death rate”.