A senior Chinese health official revealed that a Chinese city records half a million cases of Covid-19 per day, with the country approaching the peak of coronavirus infections, which prompted Shanghai, China's largest city in terms of population, to urge citizens to stay in their homes during Eid. Birth.

The municipal health director, Bo Tao, said that the city of Tsingtao, located in eastern China, with a population of about 10 million, is witnessing a stage of rapid spread of infection before it approaches its peak, indicating that the infection rate will accelerate by 10% during the weekend.

The official revealed that this coastal city alone records half a million cases of Covid-19 per day, in a rare admission that official statistics do not reflect the reality of the scale of the new spread of the epidemic.

Bo Tao's statements were published in an article by one of the media run by the ruling Communist Party on Friday, and it was reported by several other media outlets before it was modified on Saturday morning to remove the numbers from it.

The Chinese government tightly controls the country's media, with tight internet censors mandated to remove any content deemed politically sensitive.

Most state media downplayed the seriousness of the new wave of COVID-19.

Even so, cities across China are struggling to contain a spike in infections that has emptied pharmacy shelves and filled hospital rooms as well as cremation centers.

At the beginning of this month, China abandoned the main pillars of its "zero Covid" policy to contain the epidemic, with the growing dissatisfaction of citizens, and canceled the procedures for closures, examinations, quarantines, and travel restrictions that all affect the Chinese economy.

However, the cancellation of these procedures made it almost impossible to track the number of infections, especially with the authorities changing their approach to defining death due to Covid-19, in a move that experts say aims to reduce the numbers related to deaths caused by the Corona virus.

And the death toll now includes only people who died of respiratory failure directly related to Covid-19, a methodology that, according to experts, aims to reduce the number of deaths attributed to the epidemic.

No deaths for the third day

And the Chinese Ministry of Health announced today that 4,103 new infections were recorded yesterday, Friday, across the country, but without recording any deaths from the disease for the third day in a row.

China recorded 4,128 new asymptomatic cases of COVID-19 yesterday, compared to 3,761 the previous day.

And the government of Jiangxi Province (east) predicted in a post on social media yesterday that 80% of its population - about 36 million people - would be infected with the virus until next March.

She added that more than 18,000 COVID-19 patients were admitted to major hospitals in the province in the two weeks to Thursday, including about 500 severe cases but no deaths.

The authorities are struggling to contain the increasing number of corona infections, as the country approaches its peak (Reuters)

Shanghai and Christmas

For its part, the Shanghai city authorities urged residents to stay at home this weekend, to reduce Christmas celebrations in the country's economic capital and most populous city, with the increase in Covid-19 infections nationwide after the lifting of strict restrictions.

Today, Saturday, a branch of the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission called on young people in particular to avoid mass gatherings, during which infection is easy to transmit in light of the low temperatures.

Christmas is not usually celebrated in China, but it is common for young people and some families to spend the holiday together.

Shanghai usually hosts a large Christmas market in an upscale shopping district, but the spread of Omicron affected the festivities.

A hospital in Shanghai estimated that half of the city's 25 million residents could contract the disease by the end of next week.

Experts say China could face more than a million deaths from Covid-19 in the next week (Getty Images)

peak injuries

In the same context, the government-supported newspaper "The Paper" in Shanghai quoted Zhang Wenhong, director of the National Center for Infectious Diseases, as saying on Thursday that China "expects to reach the peak of infections within a week."

"The peak in infections will also increase the rate of disease severity, which will have a definite impact on the entire medical resource," he added.

He indicated that the wave will continue for a month or two.

Yesterday, Friday, Bloomberg reported, citing estimates by the National Health Committee, that nearly 37 million people in China could contract the disease during one day this week.

Experts say China could face more than a million deaths from COVID-19 in the next week.

Global health experts and epidemiologists believe that the failure of the authorities to vaccinate the elderly and to communicate the strategy to overcome Covid-19 to the public, along with an excessive focus on eradicating the virus, has put pressure on China's medical infrastructure.

China has developed 9 domestically developed coronavirus vaccines, all of which have obtained approval for use, but they are less effective than Western-made vaccines that use the new mRNA technology.