Officials reportedly estimated around 37 million people were infected on Tuesday alone
By Peter Aitken
According to Chinese officials, 250 million people in the nation have contracted COVID-19 over the past three weeks.
According to the Financial Times, Sun Yang, a deputy director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, presented the statistics during a meeting of top officials behind closed doors. Included in the figure, which represents 18% of the population, are the 37 million people who contracted the illness on Tuesday alone.
According to two people with knowledge of the situation, Sun reported that the infection rate is increasing and that more than half of the populations of Beijing and Sichuan have already been exposed.
Beijing’s “zero-COVID” policy, which required lockdowns and extensive testing when even a single case had been identified, was abruptly abandoned. Many believed the regulations were overly strict and may have contributed to the high-rise apartment fire that killed at least 10 people.
The deaths prompted nationwide protests and a demand for the government to end the policy, which Beijing agreed to do – but the sudden change and lack of preparation, including inadequate vaccination levels, led to a surge in the infection rate.
Washington and the World Health Organization have pushed Beijing for greater transparency regarding case numbers, disease severity and other health numbers. Official reports of Wednesday’s meeting provided few details about what top officials discussed.
China also moved to narrow the definition of what qualifies as a COVID-related death, which will reduce the public death tally. Officials reported only eight such deaths since Dec. 1.
Hospitals in Baoding and Langfang have been forced to turn away ambulances and ill patients seeking treatment, while health administrators have been required to treat patients in over-capacity intensive care units on benches or the floor, officials said.
And crematoriums have had to turn people away as workers struggle to keep up with the spike in deaths, an employee told the Associated Press.
“There’s been so many people dying,” said Zhao Yongsheng, a funeral worker, who estimated that his shop burned between 20 and 30 bodies a day. “They work day and night, but they can’t burn them all.”
A Reuters witness saw a line of about 40 hearses waiting to enter a parking lot outside a crematorium to carry away 20 coffins. Staff wore hazmat suits and smoke rose from multiple furnaces, but it remains unconfirmed – though likely – that the deaths resulted from COVID-19.
Some residents have reported waiting days to cremate relatives or needing to pay steep fees to secure a “speedy arrangement.”
Fox News’ Lawrence Richard and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
