Shanghai’s hospital has warned its staff to be prepared for a “tragic struggle” with COVID-19. It expects that half of Shanghai’s 25,000,000 people will become infected by next week.

Two weeks have passed since the most restrictive were suddenly reversed by China. This has left the virus to wide open in the country.

Shanghai Deji Hospital posted on its official WeChat account late Wednesday night that there were approximately 5.43 million positive cases and that 12.5 million people will be infected by the end.

The private hospital employs around 400 people and said that “This year’s New Year’s Day, Christmas Eve, and Lunar New Year are destined be unsafe.”

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“In this terrible battle, the whole Greater Shanghai will be smashed, and we will infect every staff member of the hospital!” We will infect your entire family!

“All of our patients will be infected!” We don’t have any choice and can’t escape.

China has recorded 5,241 deaths since the pandemic started three years ago. This is a fraction of the number of deaths in other countries.

On Thursday, a Chinese official of health confirmed that China does not count deaths due to pneumonia or respiratory failure in its official death statistics.

Pre-existing diseases are not considered COVID-19 deaths. Wang Guiqiang is the chief of infectious disease at Peking University First Hospital.

This is contrary to the country’s policy of counting all deaths in which COVID-19 has been a factor, as well as coronavirus-related deaths.

Continue reading: “In Wuhan there is creeping suspicion that more suffering is coming”

China did not report any new COVID deaths on the 21st of December. However, funeral parlour workers claim that demand has increased in the last week, driving fees higher.

Experts believe that China could suffer more than one million COVID deaths in the next year due to its low level of full vaccination among its elderly population.

China’s vaccination rate exceeds 90%. However, the rate of adults who have had booster shots drops to 57.9% and 42.3% for those aged 80 and older, according to government data.

Although 389,306 people with symptoms were confirmed by authorities, experts claim that official statistics are no longer reliable as less testing has been done since the relaxation of restrictions.

According to Airfinity, a British-based data company, infections in China could rise to more than 1 million per day and death rates at over 5,000 per day. This is a stark contrast from the official data.

CCTV footage showed rows of elderly patients breathing through oxygen masks in a Beijing hospital. It wasn’t clear how many COVID patients there were.

CCTV was told by Han Xue (deputy director of the hospital’s emergency department), that they were seeing 400 patients per day, which is four times the usual.