Leaked notes from Chinese health officials estimate 250 million Covid-19 infections in December: reports

Hong Kong
CNN
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Nearly 250 million people in China may have contracted Covid-19 in the first 20 days of December, according to internal estimates from the nation’s top health officials, Bloomberg News and Financial Times reported on Friday.

If true, the estimate – which CNN could not independently confirm – would represent about 18% of China’s 1.4 billion people and represent the largest Covid-19 outbreak globally to date.

The cited figures were presented during an internal meeting of China’s National Health Commission (NHC) on Wednesday, according to both agencies – citing sources familiar with the matter or participate in discussions. The NHC’s summary of Wednesday’s meeting said it had gone deep into treating patients affected by the new outbreak.

On Friday, a copy of what is believed to be the NHC’s meeting notes went viral on Chinese social media and was viewed by CNN; The authenticity of the document has not been verified, and the NHC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Both the Financial Times and Bloomberg detailed discussions by authorities about how to handle the outbreak.

Among the estimates cited in both reports, it was revealed that on Tuesday alone, 37 million people were newly infected with Covid-19 across China. That stands in stark contrast to the official figure of 3,049 new infections reported that day.

The Financial Times reported that it was Sun Yang, deputy director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, who presented the figures to officials in a closed-door meeting, citing two people familiar with the matter. .

Sun explained that the spread of Covid in China is still accelerating and estimates that more than half of the population in Beijing and Sichuan have been infected, according to the Financial Times.

These estimates follow China’s decision in early December to abruptly lift its strict Covid-free policy that has been in place for nearly three years.

The figures stand in stark contrast to public data released by the NHC, which reported only 62,592 symptomatic Covid cases in the first 20 days of December.

How the NHC came up with the estimates cited by Bloomberg and the Financial Times remains unclear, as China no longer officially tally the total number of infections, after authorities shut down its network of PCR testing booths. nationwide and said it would stop collecting data on asymptomatic cases.

People in China are also now using rapid antigen tests to detect infections and are under no obligation to report positive results.

Officially, China has reported only eight Covid deaths this month – a staggeringly low number due to the rapid spread of the virus and the relatively low rate of vaccination boosters among people. age.

Only 42.3% of people aged 80 and over in China received a third dose of the vaccine, according to CNN’s calculations of new figures released by the NHC on Dec.

face to face growing skepticism While saying that it is downplaying the number of Covid deaths, the Chinese government has defended the accuracy of official statistics by revealing that it has updated its method of counting deaths caused by the virus.

According to the latest NHC guidelines, only deaths from pneumonia and respiratory failure after contracting the virus should be classified as Covid deaths, Wang Guiqiang, a top infectious disease doctor, said in a press conference on Tuesday.

Minutes of Wednesday’s closed NHC meeting made no mention of discussions regarding how many people may have died in China, according to both reports and documents seen by CNN.

“The numbers seem reasonable, but I have no other data source to compare with [them] with. If the estimated infection numbers mentioned here are accurate, that means the nationwide peak will occur within the next week,” Ben Cowling, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Hong Kong told CNN. in an emailed statement, when asked about the purported NHC estimate.