COVID-19 infections not problematic, experts say

The number of people in China being infected with COVID-19 is fluctuating reasonably and won't be a burden on medical resources or the public, experts said.

The latest figures from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention show that fever departments nationwide saw the number of new infections fall from 125,000 on July 1 to 92,000 on July 31. Infections peaked at around 210,000 from February to March.

The number of COVID-19 patients in critical condition last month was 203, the center said, compared with 358 in February and 588 in March.

However, the National Medical Center for Infectious Diseases said the percentage of people catching flu and testing positive for COVID-19 rose from 8.9 percent in early July to 18.7 percent late last month.

"COVID-19 infections have seen similar fluctuation globally," Zhang Wenhong, head of the Center for Infectious Diseases at the Shanghai-based Huashan Hospital of Fudan University, said on the hospital's public WeChat account on Saturday. "The United States, for example, has experienced three waves of COVID-19 infection since August last year, which follows a repeated cycle of every five to six months."

He said COVID-19 has gradually developed into a periodic respiratory disease in China because of variant mutation and a periodic decline in immunity, with the severity of symptoms being relatively stable. Those findings were based on surveillance of the past three waves of COVID-19 — in May and August last year and this February.

While the current COVID-19 infection wave gathered pace last month, the infected population won't exceed the winter peak and so won't pose a severe burden on medical resources, Zhang added.