China may be recording 5,000 COVID-19 related deaths daily

Beijing, Dec 22: Facing one of its worst crisis, China is maybe recording a million deaths due to COVID-19 every 24 hours, a report by a London firm has said.

According to Airfinity Ltd, the current wave of cases could rise to 3.7 million by next month and horrific 4.7 million by March. The modelling of the scale used provincial data and it underlines the impact of Xi Jinping government's decision to abruptly drop its controversial zero COVID-19 policy.

China had the morning claimed that fewer than 3,000 cases excluding foreign arrivals and zero deaths had been reported in the last 24 hours.

This figure comes in the wake of China changing its criteria for recording cases and deaths meaning most of them are not counted. The Chinese government has also shut its mass-testing booths and scrapped efforts to include every infection in its daily tally.

Many media houses have flagged an increasingly chaotic and worrying situation across China. On Wednesday, scary videos of patients being given CPR on the floor and doctors collapsing had gone viral on the social media.

Pharmacies are turning away customers as they have run out of medicines which had led to many relying on natural remedies such as consuming vitamin C rich fruits such as lemons.

Meanwhile the state sponsored media continues to report that China is equipped to handle the crisis. It has said that the hospitals and pharmacies are well equipped and the Communist government is handling the situation well.

The surge in cases has worried India as well and four cases of the new variant of BF.7 have been confirmed. Three were reported from Gujarat and one from Odisha. All four have been isolated and treated.

The Indian Medical Association has now advised its citizens to mask up, avoid crowds and foreign travel. On Wednesday, Union Health Minister, Mansukh Mandaviya held a high-level meeting to review the situation in India.