60% of China Likely to Catch Covid, Millions May Die: Top Epidemiologists

Beijing:

After the easing of Covid-19 restrictions, China is seeing a massive rise in coronavirus cases. Hospitals are completely overwhelmed in China, said Eric Vigel Ding, an epidemiologist and health economist.

⚠️ THERMONUCLEAR BAD — Hospitals have been completely overwhelmed in China since the restrictions were lifted. The epidemiologist estimates that more than 60% of 🇨🇳 and 10% of the Earth’s population will likely be infected within the next 90 days. Potential deaths in millions – plural. This is just the beginningpic.twitter.com/VAEvF0ALg9

– Eric Vigel Ding (DrEricDing) December 19, 2022

The epidemiologist estimates that more than 60 percent of China and 10 percent of the Earth’s population are likely to become infected within the next 90 days with potential deaths in the millions.

One of Beijing’s crematoriums reserved for COVID-19 patients has been flooded with dead bodies in recent days as the virus sweeps through the Chinese capital, The Wall Street Journal reported, offering an early hint at the human cost of the country’s sudden easing of pandemic restrictions. WSJ)

According to Vigel Deng, the goal of the CCP is to “let everyone who needs to be infected, let those who need to die, die. Early infection, early death, early peak, early resumption of production.”

China has not reported any Covid deaths in Beijing since the authorities announced four deaths between November 19 and 23. The information office of China’s cabinet, the State Council, did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent late on Friday.

Beijing Dongjiao Crematorium, on the eastern edge of the Chinese capital, has seen a jump in requests for cremations and other funeral services, according to people who work at the complex, according to the Wall Street Journal.

“Since Covid reopened we’ve been overburdened with work,” said a woman who answered the phone at the crematorium Friday, adding, “Right now, it’s 24 hours a day. We can’t keep up.”

The woman said the Dongjiao Crematorium, which is run by the Beijing municipality and appointed by the National Health Commission to handle positive cases of Covid-19, was receiving so many corpses that it was conducting cremations in the predawn and midnight hours. “There is no other way,” she said.

She estimated that every day approximately 200 bodies arrived at the crematorium, up from 30 or 40 bodies in a normal day. She said the increased workload has taxed crematorium staff, many of whom have contracted the fast-spreading virus in recent days.

The men who work at the complex, which includes a small complex of shops selling burial clothes, flowers, coffins, urns and other funerary items, as well as the funeral parlour, said the body count has risen significantly in recent days, though none are available. An estimate of the size of the increase, reported the Wall Street Journal.

Doubling time in China may not be days anymore. Double the time now by maybe “hours” some experts say – let that sink in. It is difficult to calculate R if the doubling is less than 1 day because it is difficult to test for PCR so quickly. The important point, Vegel Ding said, is that China and the world are in deep trouble.

Moreover, deaths in mainland China are significantly underreported. By a survey of hospitals, funeral parlors and related funeral industry chains in Beijing – there has been an explosion recently in funeral services due to the sharp increase in deaths.

According to the epidemiologist, the cremation in Beijing is continuing. Overburdened morgues. Refrigerated containers are required. Funerals 24/7. 2000 bodies accumulated due to cremation. Sound familiar? It’s spring 2020 again — but this time for China, mimicking the Western mass infection approach.

People rushed to a drug factory to buy ibuprofen because it was sold out elsewhere.

One of them said that usually the whole day was cremated by midday. But the recent increase in the number of dead bodies means that cremations now take place well after dark.

In a series of surprise moves this month, China dismantled much of the lockdown, testing and quarantine regimes that had bolstered its ‘Zero Covid’ approach over the past three years to suppress even small virus outbreaks.

Because of the abolition of testing requirements, it has been difficult to measure the magnitude of the coronavirus mutation in China. Daily national case numbers have fallen steadily as fewer people test themselves in public facilities. Earlier this week, health authorities stopped issuing daily numbers for asymptomatic cases for the first time since the pandemic began.

Earlier this month, the Beijing Emergency Medical Center urged only seriously ill patients to call ambulances, saying emergency calls had jumped to 30,000 a day from about 5,000 on average, straining paramedics’ ability to respond, according to Wall. Street Journal.

According to National Health Commission regulations, bodies diagnosed as positive for Covid or suspected of having Covid should be immediately cremated in purpose-built ovens, without mortuary dressing or memorial services.

But many of China’s 1.4 billion people remain vulnerable to the virus due to limited exposure, low vaccination rates, and poor investment in emergency care.

(Except for the headline, this story was not edited by the NDTV staff and was published from a syndicated feed.)