Cities across China scrambled to install hospital beds and build fever-screening clinics on Tuesday as five more deaths were reported and global concern grew about Beijing’s surprise decision to let the virus run free.

China this month began dismantling its stringent “zero-Covid” regime of lockdowns and testing after protests against curbs that had kept the virus at bay for three years but at a big cost to society and its economy.

Now, as the virus sweeps through China, there is growing concern about possible deaths, virus mutations and the impact on the economy and trade.

“Every new epidemic wave in another country brings the risk of new variants, and this risk is higher the bigger the outbreak, and the current wave in China is shaping up to be big,” said Alex Cook, vice-dean for research at the National University of Singapore’s Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health.

“However, inevitably China has to go through a large wave of Covid-19 if it is to reach an endemic state....”