This Poll Points to Sharp Covid Decline in Beijing

Editor’s note: The results of the poll in this article sheds a bit of light on how Covid is declining in the capital, but should not be mistaken for a scientifically accurate, demographics-based analysis of Beijing as a whole.

Two months after China dropped its zero Covid policy, there are signs that the capital may have developed some level of herd immunity to the virus according to a recently conducted poll of 868 members of Safe & Sane WeChat groups.

The poll shows a surprisingly large dropoff from December 2022 and January 2023, presumably because so many people got infected and now have at least temporary immunity from contracting it again.

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Though the massive wave is over, we’re not entirely free of the disease – 13 Safe & Sane members reported contracting Covid in January, and one person picked it up this month (so far). Plus, at least 15 people have been infected with variants of concern nationwide since December, including the highly contagious XBB.1.5 and BQ.1 variants, South China Morning Post reports.

Be that as it may, experts like Li Tongzheng, a respiratory diseases specialist at Beijing Youan Hospital, is quoted by South China Morning Post as saying a major outbreak is unlikely at this point in time.

What’s more, as a sign of new confidence and optimism, Beijing’s nightlife and events have slowly come back to life. A few things to look forward to as we approach the weekend (or a few regular happenings worth checking out):

We’ll keep you posted with more happenings around Beijing as they come our way, either here or on the events section of our website by scanning the QR code below:

Although our first polls, which took place in December, had more respondents – 2000 of the approximately 8,000 people in our Safe & Sane groups – the numbers for this poll are still high enough to draw statistical conclusions from.

Plus, as with the previous Covid infection polls, we can deduce that it is likely skewed in the following ways: (1) heavily skewed towards the foreign population; (2) heavily concentrated in Chaoyang/eastern Beijing; (3) concentrated on 25-55 year old individuals (relatively few children and elderly); (4) by nature is an English-speaking population.