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Asia

Chinese city seeing 500,000 COVID cases a day: official

Beijing does away with snap lockdowns, lengthy quarantines and travel curbs

A man pulls a cloth to cover up the face of an elderly woman whose vitals flatlined as emotional relatives gather silently around her for a final farewell before her body is taken away at the emergency department of the Langfang No. 4 People's Hospital in Bazhou city in northern China's Hebei province on Thursday, Dec. 22, 2022. As China grapples with its first-ever wave of COVID mass infections, emergency wards in the towns and cities to Beijing's southwest are overwhelmed. Intensive care units are turning away ambulances, residents are driving sick relatives from hospital to hospital, and patients are lying on floors for a lack of space. (AP Photo)
Image Credit: AP

  • China this month has rapidly dismantled key pillars of its zero-COVID strategy
  • The country has done away with snap lockdowns, lengthy quarantines and travel curbs
  • It's a reversal of its hallmark containment strategy.
  • Cities across the country are reportedly struggling to cope as surging infections have emptied pharmacy shelves, filled hospital wards
  • Backlogs at crematoriums and funeral homes also reported.

Beijing: Half a million people in a single Chinese city are being infected with Covid-19 every day, a senior health official has said, in a rare and quickly censored acknowledgement that the country’s wave of infections is not being reflected in official statistics.

China this month has rapidly dismantled key pillars of its zero-Covid strategy, doing away with snap lockdowns, lengthy quarantines and travel curbs in a jarring reversal of its hallmark containment strategy.

Cities across the country have struggled to cope as surging infections have emptied pharmacy shelves, filled hospital wards and appeared to cause backlogs at crematoriums and funeral homes.

End of testing mandates

But the end of strict testing mandates has made caseloads virtually impossible to track, while authorities have narrowed the medical definition of a Covid death in a move experts have said will suppress the number of fatalities attributable to the virus.

A news outlet operated by the ruling Communist Party in Qingdao on Friday reported the municipal health chief as saying that the eastern city was seeing “between 490,000 and 530,000” new Covid cases a day.

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A relative in traditional Chinese funeral attire stands near funeral wreaths at the Gaobeidian Funeral Home in northern China's Hebei province, Thursday, Dec. 22, 2022. Bodies from Beijing, a two-hour drive away are appearing at the Gaobeidian funeral home, because similar funeral homes in Beijing were packed. (AP Photo)

A man lifts an empty casket onto a van as relatives in traditional Chinese funeral attires rest near the Gaobeidian Funeral Home in northern China's Hebei province, Thursday, Dec. 22, 2022. Bodies from Beijing, a two-hour drive away are appearing at the Gaobeidian funeral home, because similar funeral homes in Beijing were packed. (AP Photo)

A hospital worker in protective gear disinfects the ward of an emergency department of Baigou New Area Aerospace Hospital in Baigou in northern China's Hebei province on Thursday, Dec. 22, 2022. As China grapples with its first-ever wave of COVID mass infections, emergency wards in the towns and cities to Beijing's southwest are overwhelmed. Intensive care units are turning away ambulances, residents are driving sick relatives from hospital to hospital, and patients are lying on floors for a lack of space. (AP Photo)

Hospital workers discuss their work at the emergency department of Baigou New Area Aerospace Hospital in Baigou, in northern China's Hebei province on Thursday, Dec. 22, 2022. As China grapples with its first-ever wave of COVID mass infections, emergency wards in the towns and cities to Beijing's southwest are overwhelmed. Intensive care units are turning away ambulances, residents are driving sick relatives from hospital to hospital, and patients are lying on floors for a lack of space. (AP Photo)

Liang from Beijing, center looks on as his 82-year-old grandmother is brought in a casket to the Gaobeidian Funeral Home in northern China's Hebei province, Thursday, Dec. 22, 2022. Liang's grandmother had been unvaccinated when she came down with coronavirus symptoms, and had spent her final days hooked to a respirator in a Beijing ICU. (AP Photo)

Family members light fireworks as offerings for their deceased relative at the Gaobeidian Funeral Home in northern China's Hebei province, Thursday, Dec. 22, 2022 Bodies from Beijing, a two-hour drive away, are appearing at the Gaobeidian funeral home, because similar funeral homes in Beijing were packed. (AP Photo)

A man pulls a cloth to cover up the face of an elderly woman whose vitals flatlined as emotional relatives gather silently around her for a final farewell before her body is taken away at the emergency department of the Langfang No. 4 People's Hospital in Bazhou city in northern China's Hebei province on Thursday, Dec. 22, 2022. As China grapples with its first-ever wave of COVID mass infections, emergency wards in the towns and cities to Beijing's southwest are overwhelmed. Intensive care units are turning away ambulances, residents are driving sick relatives from hospital to hospital, and patients are lying on floors for a lack of space. (AP Photo)

A worker in protective gear attends to visitors at the emergency department of the Langfang No. 4 People's Hospital in Bazhou city in northern China's Hebei province on Thursday, Dec. 22, 2022. As China grapples with its first-ever wave of COVID mass infections, emergency wards in the towns and cities to Beijing's southwest are overwhelmed. Intensive care units are turning away ambulances, residents are driving sick relatives from hospital to hospital, and patients are lying on floors for a lack of space. (AP Photo)

An ambulance prepares to transfer a patient in critical care to other hospitals due to overcapacity at the emergency department of the Langfang No. 4 People's Hospital in Bazhou city in northern China's Hebei province on Thursday, Dec. 22, 2022. As China grapples with its first-ever wave of COVID mass infections, emergency wards in the towns and cities to Beijing's southwest are overwhelmed. Intensive care units are turning away ambulances, residents are driving sick relatives from hospital to hospital, and patients are lying on floors for a lack of space. (AP Photo)

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Infection rate

The coastal city of around 10 million people was “in a period of rapid transmission ahead of an approaching peak”, Bo Tao reportedly said, adding that the infection rate would accelerate by another 10 percent over the weekend.

The report was shared by several other news outlets but appeared to have been edited by Saturday morning to remove the case figures.

China’s National Health Commission said Saturday that 4,103 new domestic infections were recorded nationwide the previous day, with no new deaths.

Exit wave

In Shandong, the province where Qingdao is located, authorities officially logged just 31 new domestic cases.

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China’s government keeps a tight leash on the country’s media, with legions of online censors on hand to scrub out content deemed politically sensitive.

Most government-run publications have downplayed the severity of the country’s exit wave, instead depicting the policy reversal as logical and controlled.

But some outlets have hinted at shortages of medicine and hospitals under strain, though estimates of actual case numbers remain rare.

The government of eastern Jiangxi province said in a Friday social media post that 80 percent of its population - equivalent to around 36 million people - would be infected by March.

More than 18,000 Covid patients had been admitted to major medical institutions in the province in the two weeks up to Thursday, including nearly 500 severe cases but no deaths, the statement said.
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