Over 60% population in China may be infected by Covid in 90 days: Top scientist
China faces a massive surge of Covid-19 cases after the Xi Jinping government eased lockdown restrictions, resulting in hospitals in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai becoming overwhelmed.
Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist and health economist, tweeted Monday warning that ‘over 60 per cent of China’s and 10 per cent of the Earth’s population will likely be infected over the next 90 days’ and that the deaths will ‘likely (be) in the millions’.
“THERMONUCLEAR BAD – Hospitals completely overwhelmed in China ever since restrictions dropped. Epidemiologist estimate >60 per cent of China and 10 per cent of Earth’s population likely (to be) infected over next 90 days. Deaths likely in the millions – plural.”
“This is just the start,” Feigl-Ding tweeted and shared a video from a hospital showing dead bodies stacked in rooms and corridors. Media reports – such as one by The Wall Street Journal – indicate crematoria meant for Covid victims have been flooded with bodies yet again – scenes reminiscent of the initial onslaught of the virus.
Feigl-Ding claimed the ruling Chinese Communist Party planned to ‘let whoever needs to be infected, infected, let whoever needs to die, die. Early infections, early deaths, early peak, early resumption of production’.
The epidemiologist said one of the major reasons for the surge was China’s ‘weaker’ vaccines apparently unable to protect against evolving Omicron variants.
“A deeper problem lies in the weaker CoronaVac (by SinoVac) and Sinopharm vaccines. Notice how even with 3 shots of main CoronaVac shot, neutralisation performance against newer recent #omicron variants is poor—this is bad. China isn’t using bivalent yet.”
China has not reported Covid deaths in Beijing since November 23.
The epidemiologist also said the cremation in Beijing is happening nonstop and warned of morgues being overloaded. “24/7 funerals… 2,000 bodies backlogged for cremations. Sound familiar? It is spring 2020 all over again– but this time for China, emulating a more Western-mass infection approach,” he tweeted.
“Doubling time in China may not be days anymore. Doubling time now possibly ‘hours’ says some experts – let that sink in. R is hard to calculate if doubling is less than 1 day because it’s hard to PCR test that fast. The point is China and the world is in deep trouble.
Other experts have also said deaths in mainland China are being underreported. Through a survey of hospitals, funeral parlors and related funeral industry chains in Beijing there is a recent explosion in funeral services caused by the sharp increase in deaths. People rushed to a pharmaceutical factory to buy ibuprofen because it is completely sold out elsewhere.
Earlier this month, the Beijing Emergency Medical Centre urged only critically ill patients to call for ambulances, saying that emergency requests had jumped to 30,000 a day from an average of about 5,000, straining the capacity of paramedics to respond, WSJ reported.
However, many of China’s 1.4 billion people remain vulnerable to the virus because of limited exposure, low vaccination rates and poor investment in emergency care.