89% of people infected with Kovid in China’s third most populous province: official

Beijing:

Nearly 90 percent of people in China’s third-most populous province have now been infected with Covid-19, a top official said on Monday, as the country grapples with an unprecedented surge in cases.

Kan Quancheng, director of the health commission of central Henan province, told a press conference that “as of January 6, 2023, the province’s COVID infection rate is 89.0 percent.”

With a population of 99.4 million, figures suggest that about 88.5 million people in Henan may now be infected.

Visits to fever clinics peaked on December 19, Kan said, “after which there was a steady decline”.

China is grappling with a surge in cases following its decision last month to lift lockdowns, quarantines and mass testing that hammered its economy and sparked rare nationwide protests.

And Beijing is determined to lift a mandatory quarantine for all international arrivals on Sunday and reopen its border with the semi-autonomous southern city of Hong Kong.

But infections are expected to rise as the country celebrates the Lunar New Year later this month, with millions of people expected to travel from big cities to rural areas to visit vulnerable older relatives.

In the first wave of pre-holiday travel, official data showed 34.7 million people traveled domestically on Saturday – more than a third of last year’s figure, according to state media.

Official figures show that just over 120,000 people have been infected and 30 have died in the past week since China eased Covid restrictions in early December.

But after Beijing narrowed its definition of Covid deaths last month and mass testing is no longer mandatory, its data no longer reflect the true scale of the outbreak.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and was auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)