"Now I have a fever", "On the third day of my return to the office, I am positive for Covid-19": since the sudden abandonment of the zero Covid policy in China, on December 7, thousands of testimonials like these abound on social media, often accompanied by photos of positive self-tests.

With a population with little immunity and limited vaccination among vulnerable people, letting the contagious Omicron variant circulate freely has led to a wave of massive contaminations throughout the country.

>> China: with the end of zero Covid, the specter of an outbreak of contamination

While a few weeks ago, the discovery of a handful of cases of Covid-19 led to the confinement of neighborhoods or even entire cities, today, however, it is impossible to have a precise view of the extent of the situation.

By deciding to “learn to live with the virus”, the authorities also put an end to the compulsory screenings which the population had until then to indulge in every two or three days.

No more reliable data is therefore available. 

Beijing particularly affected

But the capital, Beijing, and its 22 million inhabitants, seems particularly affected by this peak of contamination.

As of December 14, Deputy Prime Minister Sun Chunlan admitted that infections there “were increasing rapidly”.

At the same time, some companies were reporting 90% of their staff "indisposed".

According to a survey of 3,000 expatriates in Beijing, published on December 15 by the magazine The Beijinger and relayed by Le Monde, 9% of those questioned had Covid-19 before December 1, 58% since that date and only 33 % didn't catch it.

"Plausible" figures, according to the daily. 

The other metropolises of the country do not seem to be spared.

Proof of this is that in Shanghai and Canton, local authorities have announced that all schools in the city will switch to distance learning again from Monday, going against national guidelines. 

And this deterioration of the situation gives rise to a paradox: after weeks of protest against repeated confinements, some inhabitants now prefer to stay at home for fear of being contaminated.

In Canton, Chengdu or Wuhan, the streets are almost deserted.

"We have freedom of movement now," congratulated an octogenarian to AFP, saying he was "not very worried" about the Omicron variant, before adding: "But we must not relax too much and give too much freedom all the same. Because if you die, where's the freedom, right?

Shanghai is turning into the Ghost Town Beijing has already been for a week.

Everybody seems either sick or staying in to avoid Covid.



This is a usually busy shopping street today: pic.twitter.com/PQciM2XEjc

— Christian Petersen-Clausen (@chris__pc) December 19, 2022

Another sign illustrates the moral state of the population, divided between relief and concern.

Sales of self-tests have exploded in pharmacies but also those of medicines against fever, colds and even traditional remedies.

A desire to make a stock in prevention for some, what to treat, for others. 

>> The end of "zero Covid" in China, a boon for traditional medicine

China/Covid: faced with the shortage of medicines, a solidarity movement is organized on the networks.

“You need 4 ibuprofen tablets for the 2 days when you are most feverish.

We can share the boxes from 24 to 6, ”say the Pekingese in solidarity.🧶


👉https://t.co/ILfbk6saz4 pic.twitter.com/G5Bi6qBUZd

— Stephane Lagarde (@StephaneLagarde) December 22, 2022

Fears are growing especially concerning the elderly, who are poorly vaccinated and therefore particularly vulnerable.

Several retirement homes across the country have thus announced that they are gradually cutting themselves off from the outside world, having their staff sleep on site and only allowing food and goods to enter, to protect their patients.

Overcrowded hospitals

In some hospitals, doctors are also warning about a situation that is becoming "uncontrollable".

"Our hospital is overwhelmed with patients. There are 700 to 800 feverish people arriving every day," Li, a doctor at a hospital in Sichuan province, told Reuters.

"We have run out of fever and cold medicine, awaiting delivery from our suppliers. A few nurses have tested positive. There are no special protective measures for hospital staff."

“I was overwhelmed by nearly 200 patients with symptoms of Covid-19 last night, abounded a nurse from a hospital in Chengdu. 

On social networks, many photos and videos show queues of several hours before being able to get treatment, while in several establishments, non-emergency operations had to be canceled.

Another day with more videos on Chinese social media of overcrowded hospitals and patients waiting at fever clinics.

There are those saying it's all because China opened up too fast.

Others are happy that lockdowns are over: "At least you now have the freedom to go the hospital!"

pic.twitter.com/qpAfSuXbsu

— Manya Koetse (@manyapan) December 16, 2022

"We work 24 hours a day"

Crematoriums, too, seem saturated.

In the largest in Beijing, in Babaoshan, "we work 24 hours a day. We can't keep up", testifies to the Wall Street Journal an employee on condition of anonymity, estimating that around 200 bodies arrive every day. , against about thirty usually. 

A situation similar to other cities in the country.

"Obviously we're busy, what place isn't right now?" pretended to wonder an employee of a crematorium in Baoding, near Beijing.

In Chongqing, 1,300 km away, a municipality-province with more than 30 million inhabitants, another establishment told AFP that it no longer had room to store the bodies.

Their number in recent days is "much greater than before", he said, without however clearly attributing this increase to a spread of Covid-19.

Authorities stay the course

China thus seems to be paying for the weak immunity of its population: few inhabitants have already had Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic, only 40% of those over 80 are fully vaccinated and the effectiveness of the vaccines administered - 100% Chinese - subject to questioning.

But the Chinese authorities are maintaining the course of their new health policy.

Officially, they have counted only six deaths linked to Covid-19 since the beginning of December and the lifting of health restrictions.

A low figure, which is explained, above all, by a change in methodology for identifying cases.

The Chinese authorities announced on Tuesday December 21 that, from now on, only people who died directly from respiratory failure linked to Covid-19 would be counted in the statistics. 

This change means that "very many deaths will not be listed" as being due to Covid, laments to AFP Leong Hoe Nam, an infectious disease expert based in Singapore.

"Hard to say it's not politically motivated," adds health expert Yanzhong Huang of the Council on International Relations, an American think tank.

For its part, the World Health Organization (WHO), which initially welcomed the end of the zero Covid policy in China, is now doing an about-face.

"The WHO is very concerned about the development of the situation in China," acknowledged Wednesday, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the institution's director general.

According to projections by the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), a US-based public health statistics institute, the lifting of health restrictions could result in the death of more than one million people in 2023. . 

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