COVID-19 Daily Mortality in China Peaked at 4,273 on January 4
/ Go to the mediabankA health worker checks the temperatures of visitor at the entrance of a Community Testing Centre in Hong Kong, China. After days of rapidly increase of positive COVID-19 cases, the Hong Kong government set up testing facility centers where people can be tested for COVID-19 and obtain the result within 24 hours.
/ Go to the mediabankInternationalIndiaAfricaBEIJING (Sputnik) – China reached its peak daily mortality from the COVID-19 pandemic on January 4, with a total of 4,271 deaths, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC) said on Wednesday. “The number of deaths from COVID-19 in hospitals peaked on January 4, when 4,273 people died, then the number declined and fell to 896 on January 23, which is 79% less than during the peak period,” China CDC said in a statement. Chinese hospitals were under the greatest strain in the second half of December 2022 and the beginning of January, the statement said. The peak of COVID-19 hospitalizations fell on December 23, when 2.86 million people turned to hospitals across the country with virus symptoms. Since then, the figure has been declining and fell to 63,000 on Monday, according to the statement. Meanwhile, the number of patients with COVID-19 in the country’s hospitals fell by 84.8% to 248,000 on Monday, compared to 1.62 million on January 5, China CDC noted. The center added that the daily increase in patients with severe coronavirus rose by nearly 10,000 from December 27 to January 3. This figure decreased to 36,000 on Monday, from 128,000 on January 5. At the end of December, China registered millions of COVID-19 infections, with peak numbers recorded on December 22, when almost 7 million people tested positive for coronavirus, China CDC said. “Since December 9, 2022, the number of positive PCR tests and the proportion of positive results in all provinces have been on an upward and downward trend. The number of people with positive PCR tests peaked on December 22 (6.94 million) and then gradually decreased, reaching a low of 15,000 on January 23, 2023,” the statement read. In mid-December, Bloomberg cited Chinese government estimates that nearly 248 million, or 18% of the population, likely became infected with COVID-19 in the first 20 days of December. In December, China’s government started to gradually ease its “zero tolerance” policy toward the pandemic, which had been the strictest in the world for almost three years. It had a negative impact on the global economy, supply chains, tourism and intergovernmental exchanges. On January 8, obligatory PCR testing and centralized isolation for people arriving in China were canceled. At the same time, Beijing faced an increase in COVID-19 infections, prompting a number of countries, including the United States, Italy, Japan, and South Korea, to tighten measures against passengers arriving from China.