A "wildfire" Covid outbreak will tear through China after Beijing ends one of the world's strictest lockdowns.
Xi Jinping's Zero Covid policy, which sparked nationwide protests demanding his resignation, appears to have now been abandoned as a number of its punitive measures are rolled back.
The length of lockdown has been slashed and children have been sent back to school.
It comes as the country's vaccination programme suffers under the weight of patients.
Some fear the quick turnaround could trigger a wave of fresh infections because only 25 per cent of Chinese citizens have been jabbed.
Dr Ali Mokdad, professor of Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, has warned the new wave will ravage China like an "explosion".
He he told Fortune : “If you look at the numbers, only about 25 per cent of those in China have immunity against Omicron.
“If they open up, 75 per cent of the population is going to get infected.
"They cannot handle the explosion in infections and hospitalisations. This will spread like wildfire.”
Questions have also been raised about the accuracy of the Covid statistics coming out of Beijing.
On November 26, cases reported by the party surged to an all-time record of 39,791 cases, but dropped to just 16,797 in two weeks when new figures were released yesterday.
Speaking with the Financial Times, China economist for ANZ Bank Raymond Yeung said that a number of cities are already battling "high infection" rates, with others expected to surge.
Other Asian countries also fear a spike in Chinese infections ahead of the biting winter.
Earlier this week, Singapore's Health Minister Ong Ye Kung warned the public last week of China sparking a new rush of cases in the New Year when it opens its borders.
CNA reported him saying: "When China opens up more – it looks like they are shifting their policy.
"If they do so, there will bound to be more infections. We can see that more and more people are infected in China, and when that happens, [given] the density and the enormous population of China, there are bound to be new variants of concern."
Recorded cases of the virus rose by 31,444 in just 24 hours, the National Health Commission revealed on November 26 - the highest daily figure since the novel coronavirus was first detected in Wuhan in late 2019.
Despite most other countries lifting restrictions since the start of the year, China’s ruling Communist Party (CCP) has kept to a "zero-Covid" strategy that aims to isolate every reported case and impose strict lockdowns in affected areas.
Both businesses and residential properties have been hit with strict restrictions in a number of cities, including the capital of Beijing.
