Nearly 37 million people in China may have been infected with COVID-19 on a single day this week, the Bloomberg news agency has reported, citing minutes from an internal meeting of the country’s National Health Commission held on Wednesday.
The report which was
published on Friday said about 18 percent of the country’s population – 248 million people – are likely to have contracted the virus in the first 20 days of December.
China is witnessing a dramatic surge in coronavirus cases since the country succumbed to public demands against the controversial zero-COVID policy following widespread protests in recent weeks.
Under the zero-COVID policy, the country’s authorities were placing entire towns and cities under lockdown if they reported a few cases. Now that there are no strict restrictions, the cases are surging at a fast pace.