JABAR EKSPRES – China has been hit again by a wave of COVID-19 cases which experts estimate will peak in June 2023 with 65 million cases per week.
The Beijing City Center for Communicable Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) said that during May 15-21 there were 25,544 cases of COVID-19 in the capital or four times more than the period from April 24-30.
Of the total number of cases, 96.5 percent were respiratory in nature, the Beijing CDC said as quoted by local media on Saturday.
China recorded more than 2.1 million COVID cases nationwide that occurred during April 1-30.
A total of 2,217 of them died, according to the China Center for Communicable Disease Prevention and Control.
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Meanwhile, respiratory disease expert Prof. Zhong Nanshan had previously warned of a large wave of cases.
According to him, a small wave of COVID-19 cases in late April and early May has been successfully anticipated. However, in May cases will peak at around 40 million per week. Then, he estimates that by the end of June it will reach 65 million cases per week, dominated by the XBB variant.
Previously, Zhong also estimated that 85 percent of China’s population had been exposed to COVID-19. Thus, around 1.1 billion to 1.2 billion people in China no longer care about the symptoms of COVID.
Two types of COVID-19 vaccines against the XBB variant have been approved by local authorities, with three or four more to follow.
“Thus China will be at the forefront of developing more effective vaccines,” he said, Saturday (5/27).
Since December 9, 2022, Chinese authorities have lowered the COVID-19 handling status so that it is more relaxed and there is no longer a strict regional lockdown if a positive case is found as was applied throughout 2020-2022.
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