Nearly 90 percent of residents of Henan, one of China’s most populous provinces, have been infected with Covid-19, a regional health official said on Monday, as China grapples with an unprecedented explosion of positive coronavirus cases, AFP reported.

Chinese people eat on the street in Luoyang City, Henan ProvincePhoto: DreamsTime / Mirko Kuzmanovych

After three years of imposing some of the world’s most draconian restrictions, China suddenly lifted most of its coronavirus medical measures last month. Then the number of patients increased exponentially, while the health care system was overwhelmed with elderly patients and crematoria were overwhelmed by the influx of deaths.

In Henan, China’s third most populous province, 89 percent of the population was infected with Covid as of January 6, local health official Kang Quancheng said. This means that about 88.5 million people have already contracted Covid out of the province’s population of almost 100 million.

The number of visits to the doctor about fever reached its peak on December 19 and has been steadily decreasing since then, the media official is quoted as saying.

Authorities expect a new wave of infections during Chinese New Year (January 22 this year), when millions of urban Chinese travel to the countryside to meet their families.

More than 34 million trips were recorded on Saturday, the first day of the world’s largest annual migration, according to official figures.

China, with a population of 1.4 billion people, says it has recorded just 30 Covid-related deaths since lifting medical restrictions in December, despite an unprecedented wave of infections in the country. Many experts and even the World Health Organization claim that the numbers do not reflect the real situation.

In December, China revised the criteria for the number of deaths from Covid. Now, only people who died directly from respiratory failure caused by the coronavirus fall into the statistics. This change in methodology means that a large number of deaths will no longer be recorded as being caused by Covid.

Despite the return of the epidemic, China on Sunday canceled the mandatory quarantine for people arriving in the country from abroad. However, a PCR test is still required and tourist visas are suspended.

(article photo: © Mirko Kuzmanovic | Dreamstime.com)