COVID in China: Half of Shanghai’s population of 25 million ‘could be infected by end of next week’
A Shanghai hospital has told its staff to prepare for a “tragic battle” with COVID-19 as it expects half of the city’s 25 million people will get infected by the end of next week.
It is two weeks since most zero-COVID restrictions were suddenly reversed in China, leaving the virus to sweep through the country largely unchecked.
The Shanghai Deji Hospital, posting on its official WeChat account late on Wednesday, estimated there were about 5.43 million positive cases in the city and predicted 12.5 million will get infected by the end of the year.
People wearing protective masks and face shields arrive at a hospital in Shanghai
“This year’s Christmas Eve, New Year’s Day, and the Lunar New Year are destined to be unsafe,” said the private hospital, which employs about 400 staff.
“In this tragic battle, the entire Greater Shanghai will fall, and we will infect all the staff of the hospital! We will infect the whole family!
“Our patients will all be infected! We have no choice, and we cannot escape.”
China‘s official number of deaths since the pandemic began three years ago stands at 5,241 – a fraction of what most other countries faced.
A Chinese health official confirmed on Thursday that China only counts deaths from pneumonia or respiratory failure in its official COVID death toll.
Fatalities that occur in patients with pre-existing illnesses are not counted as COVID-19 deaths, said Wang Guiqiang, the head of infectious disease at Peking University First Hospital.
This runs counter to the policy in most countries of counting any death in which COVID-19 is a factor as a coronavirus-related death.
Read more: ‘In Wuhan, there is creeping sense more suffering is coming’
China reported no new COVID deaths for a second consecutive day on 21 December, even as funeral parlour workers say demand has jumped in the past week, pushing fees higher.
Medical staff move a patient into a fever clinic at a hospital, as a COVID outbreak continues in Shanghai
Experts say China could face more than a million COVID deaths next year, given relatively low full vaccination rates among its vulnerable elderly population.
China’s vaccination rate is above 90%, but the rate for adults who have received booster shots drops to 57.9%, and to 42.3% for people aged 80 and above, government data shows.
Authorities confirmed 389,306 cases with symptoms, but some experts say official figures have become an unreliable guide as less testing is being done following the easing of restrictions.
Infections in China are likely to be more than a million a day with deaths at more than 5,000 a day, a “stark contrast” from official data, British-based health data firm Airfinity said this week.
At a hospital in Beijing, footage from state television CCTV showed rows of elderly patients in the intensive care unit breathing through oxygen masks. It was unclear how many had COVID.
The deputy director of the hospital’s emergency department, Han Xue, told CCTV they were receiving 400 patients a day, four times more than usual.
The targeted killing of Al Jazeera journalist Anas Al-Sharif and four other colleagues by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) late on Sunday silences more crucial reporting voices from inside Gaza.
The IDF wasted no time in releasing a statement claiming it had “eliminated” Al-Sharif, calling him a “terrorist” who “posed” as a journalist for Al Jazeera.
Gaza latest: Follow live updates
The Committee to Protect Journalists warned in July that Al-Sharif was the victim of an Israeli smear campaign and that they feared for his safety.
The IDF had previously released documents which they say proved his involvement with Hamas.
Gazan journalist Anas Al-Sharif leaves behind a wife and two children
No word from them on his colleagues – Mohammed Qreiqeh, Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa – who they also killed. We are chasing.
Al-Sharif’s death – and that of his four colleagues – is a chilling message to the journalistic community both on the ground and elsewhere ahead of Israel’s impending push into Gaza City.
There will now be fewer journalists left to cover that story, and – if it is even possible – they will be that bit more fearful.
This is how journalists are silenced. Israel knows this full well.
It has also not allowed international journalists independent access to enter Gaza to report on the war.
Al-Sharif’s death has sent shockwaves across the region, where he was a household name. He was prolific on social media and had a huge following.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Read more from Sky News:
Journalists demand access to Gaza
Sky News on Israel’s ‘war on truth’
Reporters issue demand to Israel
I was watching horrifying footage of the immediate aftermath of the strike in the taxi on my way into the bureau, and the driver told me how he and his family had all cried for Anas when the news came in.
His little daughter cried because of Al-Sharif’s little daughter, Sham, who she knew from social media.
“They call everyone Hamas,” my taxi driver said. “Men, women, children”.
Last month, Al-Sharif wrote this post: “I haven’t stopped covering [the crisis] for a moment in 21 months, and today I say it outright… and with indescribable pain.
“I am drowning in hunger, trembling in exhaustion and resisting the fainting that follows me every moment… Gaza is dying. And we die with it.”
This is what journalists in Gaza are facing, every single day.
Israel’s prime minister added more detail to his deeply controversial plans for military escalation in Gaza at a news conference with foreign media yesterday – despite the condemnation of the UN Security Council, which met in an emergency session and urged him to rethink.
Benjamin Netanyahu spoke of a “fairly short timetable” to establish designated “safe zones” for the one million or so set to be displaced from Gaza City.
He also vowed to seize and dismantle Hamas’s final strongholds there – in the central refugee camps, and in al Mawasi, along Gaza’s southwestern coast.
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Rare aerial footage shows scale of destruction in Gaza
This, per Netanyahu, is the only way to destroy the terror group, which he claimed “subjugates Gazans, steals their food and shoots them when they try to move to safety”.
Al Mawasi is already home to a significant displaced population, most of whom live in tents cramped up against the Mediterranean Sea, in what is already a designated humanitarian zone.
If members of Hamas live among them, rooting them out will be hugely complicated and will involve significant civilian casualties. If the residents of Gaza City can’t evacuate south to al Mawasi, where will they go?
Netanyahu’s plan is to set up more aid distribution sites through the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) and to flood Gaza with food.
He claimed his policy was not one of forced starvation – describing particular photos of starving babies as “fake news”, and accusing the media of painting a false picture.
“The only ones who are being deliberately starved in Gaza are our hostages,” the prime minister claimed.
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‘We suffer greatly’: Life in Gaza gets harder
I asked Netanyahu how he would go about preventing the kinds of daily killings taking place at aid distribution points in the months since GHF has been operating.
Doctors Without Borders has described these incidents as deliberately orchestrated.
The prime minister said increasing the amount of aid heading into the Strip was the answer.
“And by the way, a lot of the firing was done by Hamas seeking to have a response by our forces,” he added. “And very often they didn’t, they held back. They stayed their own fire even though their own lives were on the line.”
Read more:
Israeli soldier dies by suicide
The danger of aid airdrops revealed
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Gaza: Aid drops ‘killing our children’
This was Israel’s prime minister trying to get on the front foot in a propaganda war he acknowledged he was losing. He was loath to admit the presence of famine in Gaza.
It took two questions before he acknowledged there was “deprivation”, even if he would not be drawn on whether his 11-week total blockade of the strip earlier this year had played any role.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
He recognises that the appalled response of the international community to the human cost of this war, and the accusations of war crimes and genocide which Israel so vehemently rejects, are a terrible look.
This was his attempt to reclaim the narrative.
World
Defiant Netanyahu sets out plan for military escalation in Gaza – and describes photographs of starving babies as ‘fake news’
Israel’s prime minister added more detail to his deeply controversial plans for military escalation in Gaza at a news conference with foreign media yesterday – despite the condemnation of the UN Security Council, which met in an emergency session and urged him to rethink.
Benjamin Netanyahu spoke of a “fairly short timetable” to establish designated “safe zones” for the one million or so set to be displaced from Gaza City.
He also vowed to seize and dismantle Hamas’s final strongholds there – in the central refugee camps, and in al Mawasi, along Gaza’s southwestern coast.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Rare aerial footage shows scale of destruction in Gaza
This, per Netanyahu, is the only way to destroy the terror group, which he claimed “subjugates Gazans, steals their food and shoots them when they try to move to safety”.
Al Mawasi is already home to a significant displaced population, most of whom live in tents cramped up against the Mediterranean Sea, in what is already a designated humanitarian zone.
If members of Hamas live among them, rooting them out will be hugely complicated and will involve significant civilian casualties. If the residents of Gaza City can’t evacuate south to al Mawasi, where will they go?
Netanyahu’s plan is to set up more aid distribution sites through the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) and to flood Gaza with food.
He claimed his policy was not one of forced starvation – describing particular photos of starving babies as “fake news”, and accusing the media of painting a false picture.
“The only ones who are being deliberately starved in Gaza are our hostages,” the prime minister claimed.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
‘We suffer greatly’: Life in Gaza gets harder
I asked Netanyahu how he would go about preventing the kinds of daily killings taking place at aid distribution points in the months since GHF has been operating.
Doctors Without Borders has described these incidents as deliberately orchestrated.
The prime minister said increasing the amount of aid heading into the Strip was the answer.
“And by the way, a lot of the firing was done by Hamas seeking to have a response by our forces,” he added. “And very often they didn’t, they held back. They stayed their own fire even though their own lives were on the line.”
Read more:
Israeli soldier dies by suicide
The danger of aid airdrops revealed
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Gaza: Aid drops ‘killing our children’
This was Israel’s prime minister trying to get on the front foot in a propaganda war he acknowledged he was losing. He was loath to admit the presence of famine in Gaza.
It took two questions before he acknowledged there was “deprivation”, even if he would not be drawn on whether his 11-week total blockade of the strip earlier this year had played any role.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
He recognises that the appalled response of the international community to the human cost of this war, and the accusations of war crimes and genocide which Israel so vehemently rejects, are a terrible look.
This was his attempt to reclaim the narrative.
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