China’s unprecedented COVID-19 outbreak is feared to worsen in the coming months and leave the country ravaged. As per mathematical calculations, doctors foresee the spread of virus to leave nearly 10 crore people infected. Predictions suggest 50 lakh hospitalisations and a death toll mounting to 10 lakh. 

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“Based on mathematical calculations, we expect close to 100 million COVID cases in China, five million admissions and one million deaths, which is a huge number,” Dr Neeraj Kumar Gupta, HOD of Pulmonary Medicine at Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi was quoted as saying on Saturday.

Meanwhile, India has amped up its pandemic defence protocol. Testing, tracing and genome sequencing has been increased. People coming in from China and other affected countries are undergoing mandatory tests. A nationwide Covid-19 preparedness mock drill will get underway in thousands of hospitals from Tuesday.

Doctors, however, do not expect India to be severely hit by this new wave. In fact, China is going through something similar to what India faced with the Delta variant last year during the second wave. 

"We faced the first wave, second wave of a much serious delta variant and the third wave of the Omicron variant which was not that serious but very infectious," Gupta said. The Chinese population has low immunity due to the country’s strict lockdown, he reiterated what medical experts have said.

In news from China, a report from Radio Free Asia that cites leaked government documents said that nearly 25 crore (248 million) people may have been infected in China in just 20 days of December. This figure would mean over 17 percent of China’s population being Covid-19 positive. 

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