On December 20, India issued an advisory to all states and UTs amidst a sudden spike in Covid-19 cases worldwide. One of the countries that are experiencing an unprecedented spike Covid-19 infections is China. Though there are doubts if China is reporting the exact number of cases or not, World Health Organisation’s (WHO) data shows worrying signs in terms of China. As per WHO’s website, China is in the seventh position of the top ten countries facing the spike in Covid-19 cases.
Although the Chinese government had imposed strict lockdowns and restrictions as part of its ‘zero Covid’ policy which had triggered massive protests across the country, the policy has failed and there is a huge spike in new cases. In the last week, China has reported 1,48,665 new cases of Covid-19. 443 people have lost their lives due to the complications linked to the disease in just one week. Notably, the visuals that have been leaked on social media claiming to be recent from China, are not in sync with the numbers. Recently, it was reported that China was rapidly building quarantine centres. Videos of lockdowns and patients stuffed in hospitals have surfaced from time to time in recent weeks.
Furthermore, recent reports have noted that one of the primary vaccines used in China, i.e. Sinovac, has been proven ineffective on several strains of the virus. As per The Singapore Post report, “Recent studies have indicated that Chinese vaccines such as Sinovac have only been effective up to 61% against deaths and 55% against hospitalization, while vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer fared much better at 90% protection from both.” The ineffectiveness of the Chinese vaccine is not only a red alarm for China but also for the rest of the world.
‘Liberals’ hailed China and undermined India during the peak of Covid
As the country that has been accused of being the ground zero for the spread of the pandemic is again in the grip of the disease, we should not forget how the ‘liberals’ had hailed China in an attempt to run down India’s vaccination campaign. Many obvious actors played a role in undermining the efforts made by the Indian government in scaling up the vaccination efforts and showing China in a good light.
Saba Naqvi hailed China and said, “Some good news from the Vaccine world. China is vaccinating 14 million each day. Just digest that.”
Former Associate Editor of TOI Indrani Bagchi also hailed China for vaccinating 14 million people daily.
All India Congress Committee’s in-charge for Tamil Nadu, Dinesh Gundu Rao, wrote, “China is vaccinating 15 million a day now. India is now at 1.6 million. At this, our Vishwaguru will take years to vaccinate all.”
Context Newsroom journalist Rina Chandran also reported that China vaccinated 20 million people daily.
Twitter user PKR claimed that India achieved 8.6 million shots in one day by slowing down the vaccination program. While he tried to undermine India’s efforts, PKR hailed China, a country famous for messing with the data, for vaccinating 20 million people daily.
Fake news peddler Swati Chaturvedi last year hailed China for vaccinating 20 million people a day. At that time, India was vaccinating 4 million people per day.
The covid-19 situation across the world
Other countries among the top 10 nations facing the spike in Covid-19 cases are Japan, the Republic of Korea, the United States of America, France, Brazil, Germany, Italy, Argentina, and Peru. 13 other nations have reported between 10,000 and 50,000 cases in the last one week. Globally, over 35 lakh cases have been reported in one week. Over 10,000 people have lost their lives, and the accumulative death toll has reached 66,48,457 since the pandemic started in 2020.
