IN a fresh spike in Covid-19 outbreak, China has reported nearly 13,000 Covid-related deaths in hospitals between January 13 and 19. A week earlier, China said that nearly 60,000 people had died with Covid in hospitals as of January 12. However, considering China’s data is not regarded as reliable, the experts fear many more Chinese are infected with the virus. A top Chinese official said that nearly 80 percent of the population has already been infected by the virus. This is quite a gigantic proportion of population considering China’s is still the world’s most populous country at 1.4 billion.
This has hit hard China’s economy. China’s economy grew just 3 percent in 2022, the second-slowest growth rate since the last year of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution in 1976. The Covid surge saw the last quarter’s growth slump even lower.
If anything, this is a reminder once again that Covid has not gone anywhere. Though outside China the Covid situation remains very much stable, the world has reason to be alert. There is fear of new viruses which could turn out to be more virulent. Since the outbreak in China is likely to lead to further mutations, and given the size of China’s economy, the United States has warned the rest of the world should be concerned about it. And there is an urgent need for the world and the individual countries to get serious about the challenge.
However, India has a reason to be happy about the fresh Covid numbers: The country recorded 140 new Covid cases on Sunday and the seven day average has been 120. This shows that the pandemic is on its way out in the country. But the example of China has come as a warning that the virus is very much among us. And if we continue to ignore observing the SOP,, the pandemic could once again blow up in our face, just like it did in January-February 2021, killing thousands of people.
The continuously mutating sub-variants of the Omicron virus could in time trigger yet another wave. So people have to continue to take care. It is too soon to abandon the masks or give up the use of sanitizers. The SOP remains as relevant as it did when the pandemic broke out in early 2020. Meanwhile, we can celebrate our triumph on the Covid pandemic with the least number of Covid cases and fatalities to date.
In Kashmir too, the drastic reduction in Covid cases is a cause for celebration. It is also a boon for tourism which has witnessed a bumper year so far with over one crore people visiting the union territory. But at the same time, we can’t afford to let our guard down.
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