The current Covid-19 outbreak in China could infect 10 per cent of the world within the next three months, an epidemiologist and health economist has warned.
It comes as a shocking video footage shared online showed bodies piling up in hospitals and crematoriums in China, after the country recently loosened its extreme Covid containment policy.
Just two deaths from the virus were reported by Chinese authorities on Monday - but footage appeared to show a hospital’s corridors flooded with dead bodies on stretchers and patients being packed into wards.
Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist and health economist, shared a lengthy thread on Twitter explaining how the situation in China is "very bad" - specifically "thermonuclear bad".
He explained: "Hospitals completely overwhelmed in China ever since restrictions dropped.
"Epidemiologist estimate >60% of & 10% of Earth’s population likely infected over next 90 days. Deaths likely in the millions—plural. This is just the start."
He went on to claim the Chinese Communist Party's current Covid stance since easing restrictions was: "Let whoever needs to be infected infected, let whoever needs to die die. Early infections, early deaths, early peak, early resumption of production."
A video on his Twitter thread shows bodies piled up in a hospital in northeast China.
Chillingly, Dr Feigl-Ding further said some experts are saying that the rate of cases double is "possibly hours", before adding that China and the world is in "deep trouble".
His thread continues: "The deaths in mainland China is being hugely underreported outside of China.
"Through a survey of hospitals, funeral parlors & related funeral industry chains in Beijing—there is a recent explosion in funeral services caused by the sharp increase in deaths.
"Example—cremation in Beijing nonstop.
"Morgues are overloaded. Refrigerated containers needed. 24/7 funerals.
"2000 bodies backlogged for cremations. Sound familiar?
"It is spring 2020 all over again— but this time for China, emulating more Western-mass infection approach."
As Beijing grapples with the latest outbreak, accounts from strained hospitals and crematoriums suggest the true toll is not being reflected by the figures.
Official case numbers are widely deemed unreliable following an end to mandatory mass testing.
Other experts weighing in have agreed this is China's largest Covid outbreak to date.
Xi Chen, a global health researcher at Yale University and an expert on China's healthcare system, told NPR last week: "Recently, the deputy director of China CDC, Xiaofeng Liang, who's a good friend of mine, was announcing through the public media that the first Covid wave may, in fact, infect around 60% of the population."
Epidemiologist Ben Cowling, who is at the University of Hong Kong, also agreed and added: "This surge is going to come very fast, unfortunately. That's the worst thing.
"If it was slower, China would have time to prepare. But this is so fast. In Beijing, there's already a load of cases and [in] other major cities because it's spreading so fast."
