Chinese cities battle first wave of COVID surge as wider spread looms

BEIJING, Dec 18 (Reuters) – The streets of major Chinese cities were eerily quiet on Sunday as people stayed home to shelter from a surge in COVID-19 cases that has hit urban centers from north to south.

China is currently in the first of three expected waves of COVID cases this winter, according to the country’s chief epidemiologist Wu Zunyou. Cases could spike across the country if people follow typical travel patterns back to their home areas in a mass transit move for the Lunar New Year holiday next month.

China has yet to officially report any COVID deaths since Dec. 21. On the 7th, when the country abruptly ended most restrictions essential to a zero-tolerance COVID policy following unprecedented public protests against the protocol. The strategy had been championed by President Xi Jinping.

As part of the easing of zero-COVID restrictions, mass testing for the virus has ended, casting doubt on the ability of officially reported case numbers to capture the full scale of the outbreak. China reported some 2,097 new symptomatic COVID infections on December 21. 17.

In Beijing, the spread of the highly transmissible variant of Omicron has already affected services ranging from restaurants to package deliveries. Funeral homes and crematoriums in the city of 22 million people are also struggling to answer the question.

Social media posts also showed empty subways in the northwest Chinese city of Xian, while netizens complained of delays in deliveries.

In Chengdu, the streets were deserted but food delivery times were improving, a resident named Zhang said, after services began to adjust to the recent spike in cases.

However, antigen test kits were still hard to come by, she said. Her recent order had been redirected to hospitals, she said, citing the supplier.

‘1 PEAK, 3 WAVES, 3 MONTHS’

In Shanghai, authorities said schools should move most lessons online from Monday, and in nearby Hangzhou most students were encouraged to finish the winter semester earlier.

In Guangzhou, those already taking online classes as well as preschoolers should not prepare for a return to school, the education bureau said.

Speaking at a conference in Beijing on Saturday, chief epidemiologist Wu of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said the current outbreak will peak this winter and unfold in three waves for about three months, according to a state media report on his speech.

The first wave would run from mid-December to mid-January, mainly in cities, before a second wave begins from late January to mid-February next year, triggered by the movement of people before the New Year holiday week.

China will celebrate the Lunar New Year from January 1. 21. The holidays normally see hundreds of millions of people returning home to spend time with family.

A third wave of cases would unfold from late February to mid-March as people returned to work after the holidays, Wu said.

A US-based research institute said this week the country could see an explosion in cases and more than a million people in China could die from COVID in 2023. Read more

Wu said severe cases in China had declined in recent years and the vaccination that had already taken place offered some degree of protection. He said members of the community who are vulnerable should be protected, while recommending booster shots for the general public.

Nearly 87 percent of people over 60 have been fully vaccinated, but only 66.4 percent of people over 80 have completed a full course of vaccination, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

Reporting by Dominique Patton, Siyi Liu, Ryan Woo and Brenda Goh; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell

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