Covid in China: Half of Shanghai’s 25 million residents could be infected by next weekend | world News

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A Shanghai hospital has told its staff to prepare for a “tragic battle” with COVID-19 as it expects to have infected half of the city’s 25 million residents by the end of next week.

It’s been two weeks since most COVID-free restrictions were suddenly reversed in China, letting the virus sweep across the country largely unchecked.

Posted on its official WeChat account late Wednesday, Shanghai Deji Hospital estimated there were about 5.43 million positive cases in the city and expected 12.5 million to be infected by the end of the year.

PHOTO: People wearing protective masks and face shields arrive at a hospital in Shanghai

“This year’s Christmas Eve, New Year’s Day and Lunar New Year will be unsafe,” said the private hospital, which employs about 400 employees.

“In this tragic battle, the entire Greater Shanghai will fall, and we will infect all hospital staff! We will infect the whole family!”

“Our patients will all be infected! We have no choice and we cannot escape.”

The official death toll in China since the pandemic began three years ago is 5,241 – a fraction of what most other countries have faced.

A Chinese health official confirmed Thursday that China only counts deaths from pneumonia or respiratory failure in its official coronavirus death toll.

Wang Guiqiang, head of the Department of Infectious Diseases at Peking University First Hospital, said deaths that occur in patients with pre-existing diseases are not counted as COVID-19 deaths.

This is contrary to the policy in most countries to count any death in which COVID-19 is a factor as a coronavirus-related death.

Read more: ‘In Wuhan, there is a creeping feeling that more suffering is to come’

China reported no new coronavirus deaths for the second straight day on December 21, even as funeral parlor workers say demand has jumped in the past week, pushing fees even higher.

PHOTO: Medical staff transport a patient to a hospital’s fever clinic, as the COVID outbreak continues in Shanghai

Experts say China could face more than 1 million deaths from COVID next year, given its relatively low full vaccination rates among its vulnerable elderly population.

China’s vaccination rate is over 90%, but the vaccination rate for adults who received booster injections drops to 57.9%, and to 42.3% for people 80 and older, according to government data.

Authorities have confirmed 389,306 symptomatic cases, but some experts say the official numbers are becoming unreliable evidence as fewer tests are done after restrictions eased.

British health data company Airfinity said this week that infections in China are likely to be in excess of 1 million per day with more than 5,000 deaths per day, in “stark contrast” to official data.

At a hospital in Beijing, state television CCTV footage showed lines of elderly patients in the intensive care unit breathing through oxygen masks. It is not clear how many people have been infected with the Corona virus.

The hospital’s deputy director of the emergency department, Han Xue, told CCTV that they receive 400 patients a day, four times more than usual.

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