Beijing: China might have witnessed 248 million people, or nearly  18 percent of the total population, contracting COVID-19 during the first 20 days of December, a leaked document has shown.

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, reports Bloomberg News.

Beijing’s swift dismantling of Covid Zero restrictions 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, reports the news portal.

Chen Qin, chief economist at data consultancy MetroDataTech, forecasts China’s current wave will peak between mid-December and late January in most cities, based on an analysis of online keyword searches.

The Chinese National Health Commission announced on Sunday that it will no longer publish daily reports on the Covid-19 situation in the country amid a surge in coronavirus cases.

"Starting today, the daily information on the epidemic situation will no longer be published," the commission said in a statement.

The commission added that this duty will be carried out by its Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), but did not specify the frequency of updates.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said on Friday that the situation regarding the prevention and control of the COVID-19 situation in the country is under control.

On Wednesday, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus expressed concern with the rising number of severe cases of COVID-19 in China and urged Beijing to focus its efforts on vaccinating risk groups.

Ghebreyesus added that in order to conduct a comprehensive risk assessment of the situation, the WHO needs more detailed information on the severity of the disease, and a number of hospitalizations in China.

In November, China saw a record increase in local COVID-19 outbreaks.

Due to the deterioration of the epidemiological situation, the authorities introduced partial lockdowns in some areas while also forcing their residents to undergo PCR testing on a daily basis.