World's Largest Outbreak: China Surge Infecting 37 Million People A Day

As many as 248 million people, or nearly 18% of the population, likely contracted the virus in the first 20 days of December, according to minutes from an internal meeting of China's National Health Commission held on Wednesday, confirmed with people involved in the discussions.

Nearly 37 million people in China may have been infected with Covid-19 on a single day this week, according to estimates from the government's top health authority, making the country's outbreak by far the world's largest. 

As many as 248 million people, or nearly 18% of the population, likely contracted the virus in the first 20 days of December, according to minutes from an internal meeting of China's National Health Commission held on Wednesday, confirmed with people involved in the discussions. If accurate, the infection rate would dwarf the previous daily record of about 4 million, set in January 2022. 

Beijing's swift dismantling of Covid Zerorestrictions has led to the unfettered spread of the highly contagious omicron variants in a population with low levels of natural immunity. More than half the residents of Sichuan province, in China's southwest, and the capital Beijing have been infected, according to the agency's estimates. 

How the Chinese health regulator came up with its estimate is unclear, as the country shut down its once ubiquitous network of PCR testingbooths earlier this month. Precise infection rates have been difficult to establish in other countries during the pandemic, as hard-to-get laboratory tests were supplanted by home testing with results that weren't centrally collected.