The figure is small compared to the balance sheets of many countries but high for China, where daily totals officials barely exceeded one hundred in February.
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China announced on Wednesday April 6 a record of more than 20,000 Covid-19 contaminations in 24 hours. The country where the coronavirus was initially detected had managed, until March 2021, to largely stem the epidemic thanks to very strict measures united under the term “zero Covid”. But the Omicron variant has demolished this strategy, with daily reports that now exceed the official counts of the first epidemic wave in Wuhan.
The most populous country in the world recorded 20,472 positive cases on Wednesday. This figure is small compared to the balance sheets of many countries but high for China, where official daily totals were still barely above 100 in February. The bar of 10,000 daily cases had only been crossed on Sunday April 3.
More than 80% of new contaminations have been detected in Shanghai, which has been placed in almost total confinement since the end of March. The largest city in the country (25 million inhabitants) will convert a gigantic exhibition center into a field hospital with a capacity of 40,000 beds, announced the news agency China news. Even if the overwhelming majority of cases detected in Shanghai are asymptomatic, anyone who tests positive is placed in solitary confinement in centers provided for this purpose. The policy has been challenged on social media, with children, even infants, being separated from their parents if they have tested positive but their parents are negative.
No death linked to Covid-19 has however been recorded, said the Ministry of Health. The last two deaths officially announced in the country date back to mid-March.