Epidemic – China passes 20,000 cases daily

China announced on Wednesday that it had reported 20,000 Govt-19 infections in the past 24 hours, most of which will open a giant field hospital with 40,000 seats in Shanghai. The country where the corona virus was detected at the end of 2019 managed until March 2022 to prevent a massive outbreak of the disease, thanks to the most drastic measures combined under the word Govit Zero.

But the Omicron variant has defeated this strategy, with daily reports now surpassing the official number of the first epidemic wave in Wuhan (center). The world’s most populous country reported 20,472 positive cases in the last 24 hours on Wednesday, a small number compared to many other countries’ balances but higher than in China, where the daily total did not exceed 100 in February.

The number of 10,000 cases daily has passed on Sunday alone. No new deaths have been reported, the health ministry said. The last two deaths officially announced in the country were before mid-March. More than 80% of new positive cases have been reported in the country’s largest city, Shanghai, which has been almost completely closed since last week.

The city of 25 million people will transform a huge exhibition center into a 40,000-bed field hospital, the new China News Agency has announced. The National Conference and Exhibition Center hosts an annual import exhibition organized by Chinese officials. Although most of the cases detected in Shanghai are asymptomatic, anyone who does a positive test, including children, is held in solitary confinement at centers provided for this purpose.

This policy has been challenged on social media, with children and even infants being separated from their parents if their parents test negative. In Suzhou, 70 km from Shanghai, health officials announced this weekend that they had discovered a mutation in the Omicron variant that was previously unknown to national or international databases.