At present, due to the extremely strong contagiousness of Omicron , infection cases have rapidly covered all parts of the country and are in the stage of large-scale rapid spread. The number of infected people in many places exceeds 200,000 every day.
Many places have announced infection rates
According to news from the National Health Commission on the 21st, as of December 20, the cumulative number of people infected nationwide was approximately 248 million, with an infection rate of 17.56%. Among them, Beijing and Sichuan are currently the two provinces with the largest number of infections, with the infection rate exceeding 50%.
According to the Qingdao Municipal Health Commission’s testing data on December 23, the daily number of new infections in Qingdao is 490,000 to 530,000. It is expected that the number of infected people will increase at a 10% growth rate in the next two days.
On the same day, the Dongguan Municipal Health Commission released a digital model prediction stating that the number of infections in Dongguan City is growing at a daily rate of 250,000 to 300,000 people, and the growth rate continues to rise.
According to the press conference of the Zhejiang Provincial Government on December 25, the number of newly reported positive cases in the province has exceeded 41 million.
According to Quzhou City 28 press conference data, the city's overall infection rate currently accounts for about 30% to 35% of the total population; Zhoushan City 29 citywide infection rate reached 30% to 40%, with a total number of infections of nearly 400,000.
The cancellation of large-scale nucleic acid testing has resulted in a lack of accurate infection data. In order to better understand the epidemic situation and detect the development trend of the epidemic, Sichuan, Hainan, Henan, Anhui and other provinces have launched the second round of questionnaire surveys on residents' new coronavirus infection status.
According to the survey results released by Sichuan Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention , as of 12:00 on December 25, a total of 158,506 people in the province participated in the survey, infection rate was 63.52%, an increase of 16.59 percentage points from the first round of survey results a week ago (46.93%). It is worth noting that 28% of the surveyed people did not test nucleic acid or antigen , but developed symptoms of new coronavirus infection such as fever and cough. Therefore, the actual new coronavirus infection rate of the surveyed people should be higher than 63.52%.
According to an announcement issued by Hainan Province on the evening of December 30, as of 12:00 on December 27, a total of 33,682 people in the province had participated in the second round of surveys. A total of 35.5% of the survey respondents were infected with the new coronavirus between December 19 and December 25, which was a 5.3-fold increase from the infection rate (5.6%) in the previous round (December 12-18). Based on the results of the two rounds of surveys, the cumulative infection rate in the province reached 41%, and the number of infected people was in a period of high fluctuations. The infection rate in urban areas (40.0%) was significantly higher than that in rural areas (24.4%).
Nationwide, the People's Social Network released a survey on COVID-19 infection rates in various provinces and cities on December 26. A total of 15,107 questionnaires were received that day, and a total of 47,897 people participated in the vote.
data shows that among investigators, Sichuan Province has the highest proportion of infected people (including symptomatic, asymptomatic and recovered infections), reaching 82%. Beijing, Henan, Hubei, Hebei, Chongqing, Jiangxi, and Hunan account for 80% of the number of infections.
The number of infections in Yunnan, Shanghai, Fujian and Hainan provinces is less than 65%, with Hainan Province ranking the lowest in the country with an infection rate of 45%.
However, among all infected people, the number of recovered infections accounts for a considerable proportion. The number of recovered infections in each province is more than 20%, of which more than 50% have been recovered in Beijing and Hebei.
Since the data statistics are self-completed by the investigators, there are many factors such as subjective ignorance, etc., the survey results may have certain deviations , and are for reference only .
The infection peak is expected to be concentrated in January next year
During the accelerated spread of virus , when will the peak of new coronavirus infections in various places appear?
Judging from the current predictions of local health commissions and relevant experts, the peak period of the epidemic in most provinces and cities in my country will occur in January next year.
According to the press conference of the Zhejiang Provincial Government on December 25, based on the results of recent case monitoring and community sampling surveys, Zhejiang Province is expected to enter a high plateau period that will last for about a week around New Year's Day. During the peak period, the number of new positive people per day can reach up to 2 million.
Jiangxi Province’s press conference on December 23 predicted that the first wave of the epidemic in the province will reach the peak of infection in early January 2023, and most areas will gradually enter the peak period of the epidemic in about a week.It will shift to a low-level epidemic in early March 2023, and the epidemic will last for about 3 months. By then, the cumulative infection rate will be close to 80%.
The peak of the first wave of epidemics in Shandong, Anhui, Hunan, Guangdong and other provinces will also arrive around January next year.
Previously, most institutions also predicted the epidemic trend through Baidu search index and other methods. Most of the results were that it would peak in mid-to-late December. At present, this is different from expert predictions.
In addition, many experts have recently judged that the peak period of infection may come earlier .
On December 22, Zhang Wenhong, director of the Department of Infectious Diseases at Huashan Hospital Affiliated to Fudan University, said that the COVID-19 epidemic is still gradually rising. The epidemic in Shanghai is expected to reach the peak of infection within a week from the 22nd, and will continue for one or two months after the peak.
Tao Yisheng, director of the Anhui Provincial Health Commission, said on December 23 that it is expected that most areas in Anhui Province will reach the peak of the epidemic before the end of December, and will enter a downward channel after maintaining a high level for two or three days. Some areas with high population density and high mobility of people may reach their peaks further ahead of the predicted time. For example, Hefei City may reach its peak around the 25th to 26th.
"Now the number of infections in various places has gradually reached a relatively high level. According to the development pattern of the virus, the peak of severe cases in various places may also arrive in 2 to 3 weeks." Professor Qiu Yunqing, executive vice president of the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine, said.
Will the trend of the epidemic be "one peak and three waves"?
With the recent increase in the number of infections, how will the domestic epidemic develop in the future?
Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, once said that the epidemic this winter will have "one peak and three waves", which will last about three months. The first wave of the epidemic will be from mid-December to mid-January; affected by the movement of people during the Spring Festival, the second wave of the epidemic will be from late January to mid-February; and the third wave of the epidemic will be affected by the return to work during the Spring Festival, from late February to mid-March.
Judging from the development of the epidemic in various countries/regions around the world this year, it seems that three waves of epidemics are inevitable, and the time span and number of infections in each round are related to the country's epidemic prevention policy.
Take Japan and South Korea as examples.
Japan is a representative of gradual liberalization. The strictness index of epidemic prevention has declined in an orderly manner. Therefore, relatively speaking, the number of infections has not surged. As of December 29, the cumulative number of infections in Japan in 2022 is approximately 27.25 million, accounting for 21.37% of the total population.
The Japanese epidemic has shown three waves of growth. The first round of the epidemic lasted for a long time (from early January to mid-June), but the number of infections was relatively small. The cumulative number of infections reached 7.44 million, accounting for approximately 5.83% of its total population, and the peak number of new infections in a single day was 93,000.
The second wave of the epidemic lasted for 4 months (from mid-June to mid-October), with a total of 12.74 million infections, accounting for about 10%; the third wave of the epidemic is still heating up, with the number of new cases in a single day being around 100,000.
Compared with Japan, South Korea relaxed its epidemic prevention policies relatively quickly, and its epidemic prevention strictness index fell off a cliff in April. Therefore, the first round of the epidemic in South Korea showed explosive growth, and the subsequent two rounds of epidemics have slowed down, and it is currently in the third round of the epidemic.
The first round of the epidemic in South Korea in 2022 also lasted for 6 months (mid-January to the end of June), with a total of 17.65 million infections, accounting for 34% of the total population, and a peak of 404,000 new cases in a single day.
Since then, both rounds of the epidemic have slowed down. The peak of the second round of the epidemic was 135,000 new cases in a single day, with a total of 6.83 million infections, accounting for 13.2% of the total population. In the current third round of the epidemic, the number of infections seems to have passed its peak, with about 65,000 new cases in a single day.
As of December 29, the cumulative number of cases infected with Omicron in South Korea in 2022 was 28.31 million, accounting for 54.72% of the total population.
Although the epidemics in the two countries show different growth patterns, due to the reduced toxicity of Omicron and the increasing vaccination rate of vaccine , the case fatality rates in both countries are at a low level compared with the previous two years. Japan's current case fatality rate is 0.21%, while South Korea's is 0.09%.
Overall, the epidemic in my country is currently on the rise. With New Year's Day and Spring Festival approaching, more people are returning home, and the epidemic may experience new fluctuations.Experts remind that when traveling back home, you still need to take precautions, plan your travel time, and travel at off-peak hours; also, pay attention to personal hygiene such as hand disinfection, and wear a mask.
column editors: Zhang Mo, You Chunjie
source: Author: Lian Junxiang Xu Jiaying
