Health officials in Beijing have admitted that the COVID-19 epidemic is once again on the rise after the Chinese New Year holiday (Feb. 9–17). Chinese residents in Beijing and East China reported a spike in infections and more deaths during the holiday week. The Beijing Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced on Feb. 22, that respiratory infectious diseases in Beijing are currently caused by both influenza and COVID-19. Influenza has shown a slight downward trend recently, while COVID-19 continues to rise. The COVID-19 positivity rate in hospitals in the past week was 21.1 percent, and the JN.1 variant is the main circulating strain causing infections.
On Feb. 1, before the Chinese New Year, the COVID-19 positivity rate reported by the Beijing CDC was 6.4 percent. In about two weeks, it jumped to the higher rate. Chinese netizens posted on social media: “The outbreak is coming.” Beijing CDC’s notice also warned that after the holidays, people would return to Beijing to return to work, and primary and secondary schools would reopen. The dense population would increase the risk of transmission. The ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been concealing data about the true scale of COVID-19 in China since the pandemic started in Wuhan, Hubei Province, in late 2019.
Beijing residents who spoke with the Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times said that many people around them died during the Chinese New Year: “COVID-19 has not disappeared in China, it has been spreading.” Mr. Wang, a Beijing resident, told The Epoch Times after the Chinese New Year that the outbreak is not diminishing, but has become more severe. He said he was told by a friend who is a medical worker that frontline nurses and doctors “are not told about the real information at all [by the authorities], they are kept in the dark too.” After the CCP suddenly abandoned all COVID-19 control measures in December 2022, causing massive infections in China, the hospitals no longer conduct COVID-19 tests.
In Wenzhou, a port and an important commercial city in Zhejiang province in East China, it’s reported that the outbreak spiked, with hospitals overflowing during the Chinese New Year. According to a report by “Wenzhou Metropolis Daily” on Feb. 17, data from the emergency departments of four hospitals in the city show that during the 8-day holiday about 30,000 people sought medical treatment, and a large number of patients suffered from respiratory infections. The four hospitals are the First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, the Central Hospital, the Municipal People’s Hospital, and the Municipal Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine. The First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University hospital’s emergency room saw more than 10,000 patients, of which respiratory diseases accounted for about 40 percent.
The outbreak in the adjacent Jiangsu Province also quickly worsened. Residents in Yancheng City in Jiangsu Province revealed that the number of deaths has increased significantly, the number of funerals has doubled, and the funeral parlors are full. Mr. Li, a resident of Yancheng, Jiangsu Province, told The Epoch Times that many people have had fever recently, and he was also infected. He continued to cough and his voice was hoarse. “I know that many people have died recently. The funeral homes are full and there is no place to put [the bodies].” His friend’s mother passed away during the holiday, but they couldn’t send her body to the funeral parlor that had been arranged originally.