Beijing: As the COVID-19 cases continue to increase in China, epidemiologists predict at least three waves of the virus to hit the country during winter. It is certain that the Chinese government was "under-prepared" as it decided to end its zero-COVID policy abruptly after people held protests across the country, The Hong Kong Post reported. The Chinese government has so far remained silent on the number of deaths. However, the Chinese authorities have warned of successive waves of COVID infections in the coming months, as cases continue to increase after the lifting of restrictions earlier this month.


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Wu Zunyou, the chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, said "the current outbreak would peak this winter and run in three waves for about three months," The Hong Kong Post reported citing state media report of his speech.


Wu Zunyou made the remarks at a press conference in Beijing.


First wave of Covid-19 in China would run until mid-January


According to Wu, the "first wave would run from now until mid-January. A second wave would likely follow soon after, triggered by the mass travel of hundreds of millions of people across the country for the Lunar New Year starting on 21 January."


He has predicted that China will face a "third wave from late February to mid-March after people returned to work from the holidays," as per the news report.


The wave is expected to be triggered by the mass travel ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, which falls on January 21 as people travel to their hometowns to celebrate the day.


Notably, the work in hospitals in China has been slowing down as they face twin problems - running out of beds due to a large number of patients and health officials getting infected, The Hong Kong Post reported citing western media reports.


Meanwhile, pharmacies are running out of stock due to an increase in demand and have a scant possibility of replenishment. People are reporting countless cases of COVID-19 around them, despite the official count being around 2,000 a day, The Hong Kong Post reported citing a state media report.


Last week, the national health commission admitted that it was "impossible" to keep track of asymptomatic infections, and it would no longer be counting them.


Million of deaths predicted in coming months in China


Experts have predicted a million deaths in the coming months. According to experts, China is poorly prepared for a drastic exit as the country is facing a shortage of strengthening the elderly vaccination rate, intensive care capacity in hospitals, and stockpiling antiviral medications.


According to the projections by three professors at the University of Hong Kong, a nationwide reopening could lead to up to 684 deaths per million people under the current conditions. As China has a population of 1.4 million people, it would amount to 964,400 deaths.


The increase in COVID-19 cases will "likely overload many local health systems across the country," The Hong Post report cited a research paper, released last week on the Medrxiv preprint server said. The research paper is yet to undergo peer review.