There were 12,658 Covid-linked deaths at hospitals between January 13-19, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement dated Saturday.
The country reported 59,938 such deaths between December 8 and January 12.
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China had a population of 1.41 billion at the end of 2022, suggesting more than 1.1 billion people had the virus recently in the world’s biggest Covid outbreak.
Wu didn’t elaborate on how the infections were derived.
A sudden dismantling of Covid-zero restrictions in December meant hundreds of millions of people headed home for the Lunar New Year holiday for the first time since 2019.
President Xi Jinping singled out Covid’s rural spread in a nationwide video address he held before the holiday, saying he’s especially concerned about efforts to battle Covid in the countryside.
There were 471,739 Covid-related patients in hospitals nationwide on January 19, including 51,683 in critical condition. The data release on Saturday came after the WHO urged China to give more information.
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