Alex Plavevski/EPA
Almost 90% of residents of Henan, one of China’s most populous provinces, have already been infected with covid-19, a regional health authority said on Monday, after the country ended the ‘zero cases’ policy.
The number of patients in China has grown exponentially, overloading The health system and the crematoriaafter the country lifted highly restrictive epidemic prevention measures, which included carrying out mass testing and blocking entire cities.
In Henan, China’s third most populous province, 89% of the population had been infected with the new coronavirus as of Jan. 6, said Kan Quancheng, an official with the local health authority.
This percentage represents about 88.5 million people.
The number of medical consultations for fever peaked on Dec. 19 and has since been steadily decreasing in Henan, the official said, quoted by local media.
Authorities expect a new wave of cases during the Lunar New Year, which falls on January 22 this year. This period, the main festival of Chinese families, is the largest annual migration on the planetas millions of Chinese return to their homelands.
China, which has 1.4 billion inhabitants, has officially registered only 30 deaths from Covid-19 since the lifting of health restrictions last December, despite an unprecedented wave of cases in the country.
These numbers do not reflect the situation for many experts and for the World Health Organization (WHO).
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