China’s Covid surge sees ‘37 million new cases in single day’ as hospitals struggle

Leaked estimates suggest Covid-19 is affecting far more than official figures

Health workers carry a patient into hospital in Shanghai on Friday amid a Covid surge in China (EPA)

As many as 250 million people in China have been infected with Covid this month, according to reports based on leaked official estimates, as the country’s health system struggles with a surge in cases since restrictions were lifted.

The figure – about 18 per cent of the entire population – includes 37 million who were infected on Tuesday alone, according to Sun Yang, a deputy director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, whose estimates were leaked and reported in the Financial Times, Bloomberg and elsewhere.

The country’s National Health Commission did not comment on the reports.

China began dismantling its strict Covid controls this month, becoming the last major country to do so.

But the loosening of measures has seen a dramatic rise in cases as citizens leave factories and apartment blocks and travel for the first time in months.

As workers increasingly fall ill, more disruption to the economy and supply chains is expected in the short term before the economy bounces back later next year.

The nation of 1.4 billion people officially reported fewer than 4,000 new symptomatic Covid cases nationwide on Thursday, and no new deaths – but authorities recently narrowed the criteria for figures, prompting criticism from many disease experts.

Experts at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington in Seattle and Hong Kong University have forecast between one and two million deaths in China in 2023.

A swab is taken to test for Covid-19 in Shanghai on Friday amid a surge in Covid cases in China (AFP/Getty)

Worries over the impact of China’s Covid surge pushed stock markets in China, Hong Kong and elsewhere in Asia lower.

Daily infection rates in China are likely to be more than a million, with deaths at more than 5,000 a day – a stark contrast from official numbers – British health data firm Airfinity said this week.

A Shanghai hospital has estimated half of the commercial hub’s 25 million people would get infected by the end of next week. Experts say the country could face more than a million Covid deaths next year.

Meanwhile, cities continue to ease rules. Shanghai said people who had tested positive will be allowed to end home isolation after seven days if their symptoms significantly abate or end, without mentioning the need to undertake more tests.

The guidance from earlier this month had said they could end home isolation after testing negative on antigen and PCR tests.

China’s abrupt change in policy has left its fragile health system significantly unprepared, with hospitals scrambling for beds and blood, pharmacies for drugs and authorities racing to build clinics.

Covid patients in the lobby of the Chongqing No 5 People’s Hospital (AFP/Getty)

More than a dozen global health experts, epidemiologists, residents and political analysts interviewed by Reuters identified the failure to vaccinate the elderly and communicate an exit strategy to the public, as well as excessive focus on eliminating the virus, as causes of the strain on China’s medical infrastructure.

A drive to vaccinate the elderly that began three weeks ago has yet to bear fruit. China’s overall vaccination rate is above 90 per cent but the rate for adults who have had booster shots drops to 57.9 per cent, and to 42.3 per cent for people aged 80 and older, according to government data.

China has nine domestically-developed Covid vaccinations approved for use, all seen as less effective than Western-made vaccines that use the new mRNA technology.

A shipment of 11,500 BioNTech mRNA vaccines for German nationals in China has arrived at the German embassy in Beijing.

The World Health Organisation has received no data from China on new Covid hospitalisations since Beijing lifted its zero-Covid policy. The WHO has said gaps in data might be due to Chinese authorities simply struggling to tally cases.

Associated Press and Bloomberg contributed to this report