Canada Global (Web News) According to a senior physician from one of Shanghai’s best hospitals, during China’s massive COVID-19 outbreak, 70% of the population of the megacity may have been infected, according to official media on Tuesday.
After years of tight regulations were suddenly relaxed last month without prior notice or planning, there was a sharp increase in infections that swiftly overflowed hospitals and crematoriums.
Majority of Shanghai’s 25 million residents, according to Chen Erzhen, vice president of Ruijin Hospital and a member of the COVID expert advisory council.
He told the People’s Daily-affiliated Dajiangdong Studio that the virus in Shanghai was “now spreading very far and may have reached 70% of the population, which is 20 to 30 times greater than (in April and May)”.
Over 600,000 inhabitants of Shanghai were infected during the brutal two-month lockdown that began in April, and many of them were taken to large-scale quarantine facilities.
However, the Omicron form is currently ravaging the city, and researchers forecast that infection rates there will peak in the early months of 2023.
Chinese health officials have suggested that the wave has already peaked in other major cities such as Beijing, Tianjin, Chongqing and Guangzhou.