A prominent scientist says the Lunar New Year travel rush is unlikely to result in a spike in COVID cases as most people are already infected.
The possibility of a large-scale COVID-19 recovery in China in the next few months is slim because 80 percent of the country’s population is infected, a prominent government scientist has said.
Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist at the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said Saturday that the mass movement of people during the ongoing Lunar New Year holiday season may spread the pandemic and increase infections in some areas, but there will be a second wave of COVID-19 is unlikely in the next two to three months.
That’s because the ongoing wave of the epidemic — driven mostly by multiple sub-branches of the Omicron tribe — “has already infected 80 percent of the population,” he was quoted as saying on social media platform Weibo.
Wu’s statement came as hundreds of millions of Chinese traveled across the country for holiday gatherings suspended amid the recently relaxed COVID-19 curbs.
With around five billion passenger trips expected, fears of new outbreaks have risen in rural areas less equipped to deal with large numbers of infections.
But the government has struggled to assuage concerns, and the National Health Commission said Thursday that China has passed the peak of COVID-19 patients in fever clinics, emergency rooms and those with critical conditions.
As of Jan. 12, nearly 60,000 people with COVID-19 had died in hospital, according to government data, about a month after China abruptly abandoned its zero-COVID policy.
But some experts said that number likely underestimates the full impact since it excludes those dying at home and because many doctors have said they are discouraged from citing COVID-19 as the cause of death.