JAKARTA - The lifting of the strict COVID-19 policy since the start of the pandemic by the Chinese government has caused a spike in cases of infection and death in the country, although the peak wave of the outbreak is said to have been passed by China.
China's critically ill COVID-19 cases fell 72 percent from their peak earlier this month while daily deaths among hospitalized COVID-19 patients had fallen 79 percent from their peak, China's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Wednesday.
The figures, published on websites, come after a leading government scientist said on weekends about 80 percent of China's 1.4 billion population had been infected, leaving it likely to increase again over the next two or three months.
While officials say infections have peaked, some global experts have warned of a possible spike in cases in rural areas that are less prepared to deal with them, as millions of Chinese people travel home for family reunions during the ongoing Lunar New Year holiday.
"The number of critically ill patients in China peaked on January 4 with 128,000 cases and dropped to 36,000 cases on January 23," the CDC said.
"Meanwhile, the number of deaths in hospitals reached a daily peak of 4,273 on January 4 and dropped to 896 on January 23. Visits to the fever clinic fell 96.2 percent, from a peak of 2,867 million on December 22 to 110,000 on January 11. 23," the CDC continued.
"On December 22, 2022, the number of infected people and the number of fever outpatient consultations peaked, with the number of new infections "exceeding 7 million per day and the number of outpatient consultations for daily fever peaked at 2,867 million," the CDC said.
The data follows comments from an official at the National Health Commission, who last week said China had passed the peak of COVID patients at a fever clinic, emergency room and was in critical condition.
On January 12, authorities announced that nearly 60,000 people with COVID had died in hospital since China lifted its strict zero-COVID policy.
However, some experts say that the figure may be far from full impact calculations, as it does not include those who died at home and because many doctors say they are not advised to refer to COVID as the cause of death.
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