https://www.clarin.com/mundo/coronavirus-china-900-millones-contagiados-covid_0_1hp5lQJvpK.html

Until January 11, China had at least 900 million people infected with Covid, according to a study by Peking University cited by the local press.

The report estimates that 64% of the country’s population has contracted Covid. The most affected province is Gansuwhere 91% of people are infected, followed by Yunnan (84%) and Qinghai (80%).

And the situation could get worse, as hundreds of millions of Chinese they are going to travel to their hometowns, many for the first time since the start of the pandemic, to commemorate the Lunar New Year on 23 January.

The partial data on infections in China, disseminated above all by the provinces, have thus found confirmation in the research carried out by the prestigious university.

In recent days, the province of Henan, which is home to about 100 million people, had estimated that 89% of the population had contracted the virus, while in Sichuan, more than 80% of the more than 81 million people had contracted the covid .

Peak

The peak of infections is expected to last at least two to three months, according to epidemiologist Zeng Guang, former head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control (CDC).

The Peking University study came just a week before the Lunar New Year celebrations, the first without restrictions since 2020, during which China it foresees the displacement of at least 300 million of people to spend their holidays with their families in their places of origin

Beijing’s fears mainly concern the elderly population and in rural areas of the country, less equipped and protected in terms of health coverage than the big cities

Not surprisingly, the Chinese government’s team of experts launched an appeal on Thursday for do not visit the elderly during the holidays to avoid the risk of further spread of the virus, increasing the number of deaths in the weakest segment of the population

China has stopped publishing daily data on infections and deaths since Monday after abandoning its ‘zero tolerance’ policy against covid, despite WHO allegations that it has not reported all deaths from the disease after suffering in December the worst wave of infections since Wuhan, in January 2020

The Chinese government has criticized the WHO for having doubts the transparency of your data linked to the wave of infections from Covid that is afflicting the country

“We expect WHO to scientifically and rationally examine China’s response to COVID-19 and related statements to reflect objectivity and impartiality,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin.

WHO director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, spoke of “serious doubts about the official count of deaths in China”.

When China ran out of its Covid-zero policyby suspending the confinement of millions of people and the quarantines of travellers, it has also stopped carrying out massive tests on the population, which raises questions about the real number of cases.

HANDLE