China downplays the COVID outbreak as the holiday season gets under way.

On Friday, travellers in China crammed into trains and buses for one of the busiest travel days in years, raising concerns about potential fresh outbreaks of the Covid-19 virus, which authorities claim has reached its peak.

Vice Premier Sun Chunlan stated that the virus was at a “pretty low” level in remarks carried by state media late on Thursday. Health officials stated that the number of Covid patients in hospitals and in severe conditions was decreasing.

However, there are those who question China’s official version of an outbreak that has overrun hospitals and cemeteries since Beijing stopped mass testing and rigorous Covid regulations last month. Following historic demonstrations against the government’s strict anti-virus restrictions, that policy reversal unleashed Covid on a population of 1.4 billion people who had previously been mainly protected from the disease since it first appeared in the city of Wuhan in late 2019.

Health data business Airfinity, located in the United Kingdom, predicts that Covid fatalities might reach 36,000 per day next week. Some health experts predict that more than one million people could die from the sickness in China this year. According to Sun’s remarks, the country’s overall epidemic is currently at a low level, as quoted by the state-run Xinhua news agency.

Although the rescue effort is still significant, hospitals are seeing a steady decline in the number of critical patients. She was speaking on the eve of one of the busiest travel days in China since the pandemic began, as millions of city dwellers make their way home for the Lunar New Year vacation, which starts on Saturday. According to government projections, more than 2 billion journeys are anticipated to be made throughout China between January 7 and February 15.