A national epidemic control team of China’s State Council has called upon local governments to increase the emphasis on curing serious Covid patients in order to suppress death rates.
The Comprehensive Team for Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism for Covid-19 on Monday unveiled four detailed guidelines for Chinese cities to follow while implementing their mass test, epidemic control, home quarantine and self-health monitoring schemes.
The release of the guidelines came after Beijing on November 11 issued a 20-point notice for officials to follow in easing the rules.
However, the number of Covid cases in China has been rising over the past few weeks. A majority of vaccinated Chinese have been given the inactivated vaccines instead of the more effective m-RNA ones.
Beijing reported two Covid death cases, involving a 91-year-old woman and an 88-year-old man. Nearby Shijiazhuang has forbidden residents in high-risk areas from leaving their homes during a citywide test scheme set to last for five days from Monday.
On November 10 in a meeting chaired by general secretary Xi Jinping, the standing committee of the CCP Central Committee’s politburo decided to ease the country’s Covid rules.
The “7+3” arrangement – a week in hotel quarantine and three days at home for incoming travelers – was reduced to “5+3.” Local governments were ordered to go easy on lockdown measures and interference with classes, production and transport.
Due to these changes, the daily number of international flights in China increased to 188 on November 16, compared with an average of 143 in October, according to Variflight.com, an aviation industry data provider.
But the number remained far below to the 2019 level of 2,670 flights per day.
After the State Council’s epidemic control team launched the four guidelines to urge local governments to improve their medical services to suppress Covid death rates, the People’s Daily on Monday published an article titled, “Does the increase in cure resources mean reopening?”
The article does not directly answer this question but says China has only 6.7 hospital beds per 1,000 population and about four intensive care unit (ICU) beds per 100,000 population – figures that are lower than those in developed countries.
It says it is urgent to increase the vaccination rates of people aged above 80 in China, a group in which under 40% have received booster shots.
In comparison, Japan has about 13 hospital beds per 1,000 population and 13.5 ICU beds per 100,000 population. Figures for the United States, the world’s largest economy, are 2.9 and 29.4; and for Germany, eight and 38.7.
On Sunday, China announced the death of an 87-year-old infected man in Beijing, the first Covid patient who had died in China since May this year.
Following this case, a 91-year-old woman and an 88-year-old man, who had been bedridden for some years, also died in Beijing on the same day.
The Chinese capital reported 962 Covid cases, including 808 asymptomatic ones, It called on people not to leave the city unnecessarily.
Between mid-March and mid-May this year, Shanghai identified more than 620,000 Covid patients, including symptomatic and asymptomatic cases. A total of 588 Covid patients died in the commercial city during the period.
Since the global pandemic broke out in early 2020, a total of 5,229 people who tested positive for Covid-19 have lost their lives in China. The death toll represents less than 0.00037% of China’s population of 1.4 billion.
China said it has so far recorded about 280,000 cases, excluding asymptomatic cases.
In the United States, about 100 million people have been reported infected while more than one million Covid patients have died. The death number represents 0.3% of the country’s population of 330 million.
In Taiwan, 8.17 million people have been infected, with the total death toll reaching 13,991 as of Monday. The death number represents about 0.06% of the island’s population of 24 million.
In the worse-case scenario, several million people would be killed by Covid-19 if similar death rates were seen in mainland China, according to some medical experts.
They say it is unlikely that mainland China will see a lower death rate than Taiwan, which had 80% of its population fully-vaccinated with mRNA vaccines.
However, Zhang Wenhong, a Shanghai-based renowned infectious disease expert, remained optimistic that China will be able to suppress the death rate with its biomedical technology.
Meanwhile, mainland China reported a total of 26,824 cases on Sunday, 92% of which were asymptomatic. Guangzhou’s Baiyun district urged people not to leave their homes this week.
On Sunday evening, Shijiazhuang announced a five-day mass test scheme that aims to achieve dynamic zero Covid at the community level. It said students must study online and restaurants, shopping malls and entertainment premises must shut down. These rules are actually no different from those implemented during “lockdowns” or “static management.”
Some medical experts said that whether China will further relax its Covid rules depends on the death rates of this latest epidemic wave. They called it unlikely that mainland China will see a lower death rate than Taiwan, which had 80% of its population fully-vaccinated with mRNA vaccines.
In Taiwan, 16,197 people tested positive on Sunday and 43 Covid patients died. A majority of the deceased had not received booster shots and most of them were suffering from chronic diseases.
However, Zhang Wenhong, a Shanghai-based renowned infectious disease expert, remained optimistic that China can manage to control its epidemic with its biomedical technology.
He said it appears the coronavirus has already turned weaker in terms of lethality although it is still highly infectious.
Meanwhile, mainland China reported a total of 26,824 cases on Sunday, 92% of which were asymptomatic. Guangzhou’s Baiyun district urged people not to leave their homes this week.
On Sunday evening, Shijiazhuang announced a five-day mass test scheme that aims to achieve dynamic zero Covid at the community level. It said students must study online while restaurants, shopping malls and entertainment premises must shut down. These rules are actually no different from those implemented during “lockdowns” or periods of “static management.”
Read: HK stocks surge as Beijing eases Covid rules
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