BEIJING (Reuters) Jan,19– Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Thursday he was worried about an influx of leisure tourists to rural areas ill-equipped to deal with emergencies. Pharmaceutical companies have rushed to produce drugs to treat fevers and other coronavirus infections.
Xi’s comments, which have shielded his 1.4 billion people in China from the disease for the better part of his three years, have prompted widespread protests in late November to impose strict “zero-coronavirus” regulations. He’s just a month after his government abruptly ended.
With more travel during the busy Lunar New Year holiday season, up to 36,000 people could die from the disease each day, according to the latest projections from British health data company Airfinity.
China announced last Saturday that nearly 60,000 of his COVID patients died in hospitals between December 8 and January. 12 – approximately 10-fold increase over previous disclosures.
However, the figure does not include those who died at home, and some doctors in China say they are discouraged from listing his COVID on death certificates. Health experts say China’s official figures are unlikely to reflect the true number of viruses.
With more travel during the busy Lunar New Year holiday season, up to 36,000 people could die from the disease each day, according to the latest projections from British health data company Airfinity.
China said last Saturday that nearly 60,000 COVID patients were hospitalized between March 12 and April 12. Jan 8 and 12 — About a 10-fold increase from previous disclosures.
However, the figure does not include those who died at home, and some doctors in China say they are discouraged from listing his COVID on death certificates. Health experts say China’s official figures are unlikely to reflect the true number of viruses.
China’s disorderly withdrawal from a regime of mass lockdowns, travel restrictions and frequent COVID-19 testing has also sparked a drug rush as people battle the disease. China relies on domestic vaccines to fight the pandemic and shuns foreign-made vaccines that some studies say are more effective, but other foreign treatments for COVID-19 are in China. It was difficult to obtain.
At a conference this week, China’s National Medical Products Administration pledged to stabilize prices and crack down on counterfeit sales of COVID-related drugs.
Before COVID first emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019, the holiday was known as the biggest annual movement of people around the world. Several Chinese cities celebrate the New Year with massive fireworks after local governments lifted sales bans in recent years.
Death tolls aside, there is optimism that China’s economic reopening will revive her $17 trillion economy, which has been suffering from one of the slowest growth rates in nearly half a century.
Those hopes pushed China’s main stock market and the yuan to multi-month highs in recent sessions, but trading was weak on Thursday as investors retreated for the holidays.
