China Reports 1st COVID-19 Death in Year

China reported two deaths linked to COVID-19 in more than a year, leading the total number of COVID-19 deaths to 4683, Sky News reported on Saturday.

The state is currently seeing a surge in the number of daily Coronavirus infections due to the emergence of Omicron.

It detected 2228 on Friday, instead of 2416 cases on the previous day.

Last week, the country over reported 1000 new COVID-19 cases nationwide, which is considered the state’s highest numbers in the latest two years, Reuters reported on Friday.

The fierce emergence of Omicron variant is the main reason for such infections’ hike, therefore, several regions of the country imposed dozens of COVID-19 restrictions, and lockdown in Shanghai.

The recently imposed restrictions include widening the scope of Coronavirus tests, decreasing the duration of school classes, and halting all indoor activities.

Premier Li Keqiang said in a press conference: “We will make COVID prevention and control more science-based and targeted according to changes in the epidemic situation and characteristics of the virus.”

He added: “Since the epidemic started, the service sector has been hit the most, especially those involving in-person contact, of which medium and small-firms account for the majority.”

In the same context, Epidemiology Professor Ben Cowling said: “Infections in vaccinated inpiduals are more likely to be asymptomatic than infections in unvaccinated inpiduals, and vaccine coverage is now very high in China.”

It is worthy to mention that about 2.9 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered on the Chinese mainland so far, the National Health Commission announced last January.