Chinese Estimates Indicate 37 Million COVID-19 Cases in One Day

China's largest health authority reported that nearly 37 million people may have been infected with COVID-19 in the country in a single day this week, marking the largest outbreak of the virus globally. Bloomberg News reported today, Friday, that according to an internal meeting record from the Chinese National Health Commission held last Wednesday, up to 248 million people, or approximately 18% of the population, may have contracted the virus in the first 20 days of December. If these figures are accurate, this infection rate would render the previous daily record of around 4 million cases in January insignificant. The rapid dismantling of Beijing's zero-COVID policy led to an unrestricted spread of the highly contagious Omicron variant among a population with low natural immunity levels. According to the commission's estimates, more than half of the residents in Sichuan Province in southwest China and the capital Beijing have contracted the virus.