BEIJING: As per statements by top officials China reported nearly 13,000 deaths between January 13 and 19.
A week earlier China in its report mentioned that 60,000 people had died with Covid in hospitals as of January 12, but there has been widespread scepticism over official data since Beijing abruptly axed anti-virus controls last month.
According to a statement by CDC, on Saturday 681 hospitalised patients had died of respiratory failure caused by coronavirus infection, and 11,977 had died of other diseases combined with an infection over the period.
Although a large number of people travelling during the Spring Festival may promote the spread of the epidemic to a certain extent… the current wave of epidemic has already infected about 80 percent of the people in the country,” Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist at the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said in post on China’s Twitter-like Weibo platform on Saturday.
Tens of millions of people have travelled across the country in recent days for long-awaited reunions with families to mark the biggest holiday in the lunar calendar that fell on Sunday, raising fears of fresh outbreaks.