Tokyo — Celebrations are underway all around the world this week as Asians mark the Lunar New Year. It’s all the time probably the most festive time of the 12 months in China, however that is very true this 12 months. After Beijing immediately dropped nearly all of its draconian COVID-19 restrictions for the primary time since 2020, thousands and thousands of individuals headed dwelling to their cities and villages, taking full benefit of their new-found freedom.
But the huge vacation migration got here onerous on the heels of a surge in coronavirus circumstances throughout China. Public well being officers warned the travellers may carry the virus into distant areas and precipitate one other killer wave of infections.
In his New Year video handle, President Xi Jinping admitted that China’s most up-to-date COVID surge had been fierce and quick, and it was no understatement.
Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist on the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that 80% of China’s inhabitants — a inhabitants of greater than 1.4 billion folks, 4 instances that of the United States — has now been contaminated with the virus. Most of these infections have come simply because the begin of December.
Chinese well being officers have confirmed solely about 80,000 deaths from COVID-19, however Western analysts consider that is a wild understatement of the true influence.
Rasmus Bech Hansen, CEO of the well being analytics firm Airfinity, advised CBS News the variety of deaths from COVID-19 in China was anticipated to peak inside the subsequent week or so, “and it will reach the 1-million mark. So, 1 million total deaths at the end of this month.”
The true determine might by no means develop into clear, particularly as Chinese medical doctors have been underneath strain to not record COVID as a trigger on loss of life certificates.
Andy Wong/AP
With that backdrop, thousands and thousands of Chinese metropolis dwellers took to trains, planes and cars over the past week to move again to go to household throughout the big nation for the Lunar New Year.
The concern was that the urbanites may deliver the virus again with them, into locations the place persons are usually less-well vaccinated and populations are sometimes older, probably setting off one other huge wave of infections.
CBS News visited the provincial metropolis of Zhaotong, the place we shot video covertly as COVID-19 continues to be a delicate topic for authorities.
We discovered that the virus had arrived a while in the past. One girl advised us her mom had lately examined constructive, and a person mentioned it appeared that nearly everybody on the town — 80% by his personal estimation — had been contaminated.
It does seem that, because the nation’s leaders have mentioned, China’s COVID-19 outbreak has lastly peaked and is beginning to decline.
If that is true, and the economic system begins selecting up, the New Year of the Rabbit will likely be off to an auspicious begin.
