BEIJING: Beijing has reached “temporary herd immunity” and is nearing the end of its COVID outbreak, a city health official said on Tuesday, in another sign that China’s unprecedented virus wave is ending. .
Cases have surged in the world’s most populous country since the ruling Communist Party abruptly ended its zero-COVID policy last month.
Hospitals and crematoriums in major cities, including Beijing, are overwhelmed by the surge, although the scale of the outbreak is difficult to confirm because official figures are believed to represent a small fraction of the true number of cases.
But there are signs that the surge is starting to taper off, with officials saying last week that the number of daily Covid-19 deaths across the country has fallen by about 80 percent since the start of January.
Wang Quanyi, deputy director of Beijing’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told local media on Tuesday that the city of 22 million had “temporarily established herd immunity”.
“This wave of infections in Beijing has already peaked and is about to end,” Beijing News quoted Wang as saying.
Wang said the capital was “currently in a state of sporadic infection” with a “relatively low risk” of exposure to the virus.
The newspaper reported, citing official data, that between January 23 and 29, the number of people receiving treatment for flu-like illnesses in major hospitals in Beijing fell by more than 40 percent.
Wang said the nationwide decline in the number of infections suggested that the end of the Lunar New Year holiday “will not have much impact” as people returned to Beijing from other parts of the country.
He added that the city will survey thousands of residents in February and March to determine how many antibodies against COVID are in their blood plasma.
Wang said the survey would “comprehensively assess the state of Beijing’s coronavirus infection” and “provide a reference for improving resource allocation in the future.”