New Media Department            Yu Jie, Duan Yuqing             March 20, 2023

On the evening of March 18, the official website of China CDC released the "National COVID-19 Infection Epidemic Situation".

According to the notification in China, from March 10 to March 16, 2023, 38 new cases of local key mutant strains were discovered, including 1 case of BQ.1.2, 2 cases of XBB.1.11.1, 13 cases of XBB.1.5, and 2 cases of XBB .1.5.7, 16 cases of XBB.1.9.1, 3 cases of XBB.1.9.2, 1 case of XBB.2.3. Among them, XBB.1.11.1, XBB.1.9 and XBB.2.3 are discovered for the first time.

Since December 9, 2022, the number of positive nucleic acid tests and the positive rate of the reported population in each province have shown a trend of first increasing and then decreasing. The number of positives reached a peak (6.94 million) on December 22 and then fluctuated and decreased. March 16, 2023 it dropped to 4917; the positive test rate reached its peak (29.2%) on December 25, 2022, and then fluctuated downward, and it was 0.8% on March 16, 2023.

The number of visits to fever clinics (clinics) in China (excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) reached a peak of 2.867 million on December 23, 2022, and then continued to decline; after January 23, 2023, the number of visits showed low fluctuations, in the past 3 weeks (February 24-March 16), the fluctuations began to show platform fluctuations. On March 16, there were 483,000 visits, a drop of 83.2% from the peak.