As China battles an unprecedented COVID surge, nearly 90% of Henan — the third-most populous province — has been infected with the virus, a top health official said Monday.
Kan Quancheng, director of the health commission for central Henan province, was cited as saying that as of January 6, the infection rate was 89%.
With Henan’s population being about 99.4 million, the data would suggest that 88.5 million residents have been positive for COVID.
Visits to fever clinics reportedly hit their peak on December 19 — mere weeks after China began easing its strict “zero-COVID” policies.
After that surge late last month, the number of COVID cases “showed a continuous downward trend,” Kan said during the press conference Monday.
Media reports say the data from Henan are vastly different from the COVID figures China’s central government has shared since the start of December. The nation’s top health authority claims that since the end of “zero-COVID” only 30 people have died, with around 120,000 contracting the virus.
