Beijing nearing Covid epidemic climax, other China cities brace for peak: Report

Global attention is concentrated on China at this point in time with millions of people reportedly contracting coronavirus in December in the country that had reported the world’s first outbreak in the city of Wuhan in 2019.

In the following three years, the virus wreaked havoc across the world and the global economy suffered immensely. Now, the Chinese capital city of Beijing and several other cities are yet again staring at packed intensive care units and crematoriums.

According to a report by the state-run Global Times, elderly are among the worst-affected in the China capital where the community transmission of Omicron has led to increasing severe cases. But the overall situation is said to be improving, as per the article, which further stresses that “local epidemic is approaching its climax”. It further highlights that other cities in the country are bracing for peak numbers.

BF.7 – a subvariant of highly infectious Omicron, which had driven the surge in global Covid cases around the same time last year – is said to be behind the current spike. Quoting an expert – Wang Guangfa, a respiratory expert from Peking University First Hospital – the article further underlines that “overall rate of severe cases during outbreaks caused by Omicron is lower that of outbreaks during the early stage”, highlighting that the Covid variant spreads very fast.

While the state-run daily signals an improvement in situation, many other reports have emerged that stress that China is dealing with the world’s worst Covid outbreak. There were nearly 37 million new infections nationwide as of Tuesday this week, as per a leaked document purportedly from China’s National Health Commission. The data also suggested that about 248 million people around the country – about 18 per cent of the total population – were affected by the Covid surge between December 1 and 20,

But the official figures have been around the 3,000 mark for symptomatic cases. Deaths too have been low. Now, the National Health Commission has said it won’t be publishing daily figures.