China will eventually publish data on COVID-19 cases once a month when the disease comes under Category B management, an official at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said on Tuesday.

China's management of COVID was downgraded to the less strict Category B from the current top-level Category A, as the disease has become less virulent and will gradually evolve into a common respiratory infection.

“Starting from January 8, China will downgrade management of the disease (Covid-19) from Class A to Class B under the country’s law on the prevention and treatment of infectious disease and remove it from quarantinable infectious disease management in a major shift of its epidemic response policies,” official news agency, Xinhua, said in a report on Tuesday.

Official statistics, however, showed only one COVID-19 death in the seven days to Monday, fuelling doubts among health experts and residents about the government's data. The numbers are inconsistent with the experience of much less populous countries after they re-opened.

Doctors say hospitals are overwhelmed with five- to six-times more patients than usual, most of them elderly. International health experts estimate millions of daily infections and predict at least one million COVID-19 deaths in China next year.

The NHC had been publishing relevant Covid data since January, 2020, but only last Sunday, it stopped releasing the tally of Covid cases, handing over the responsibility of sharing numbers to the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The CDC will announce the number of existing hospitalised cases, the number of existing severe cases, including critical diseases and cumulative deaths, and no longer distinguish between local cases and imported cases, Yin Wenwu, chief physician CDC’s communication department said on Tuesday.

“The number of close contacts will no longer be reported,” Yin said, according to the state-run China Daily newspaper.

“The centre will adjust the frequency of its Covid-19 reports based on epidemic situation, and eventually the reports will be made once a month, which is standard practice for category B diseases,” he added.

According to Chang Jile from the National Administration of Disease Prevention and Control, China has two category A infectious diseases, 27 category B diseases and 11 category C diseases.

Yin, according to China Daily, said the CDC will carry out online surveys to collect more information from the community.

“The reporting of Covid-19 cases will be based on the number of hospitalised patients, the positive results of nucleic acid tests and antigen tests that are reported, and the monitoring of key groups, key venues and the mutation of variants,” he said.

The parametres mentioned by Yin will not be enough to quantify the number of infections in China given that a large number of patients are self-testing and not reporting the result to authorities, and many are not going to hospitals despite having symptoms.

However, it’s likely that the Chinese government does have a good idea about the actual extent of the outbreak.

Nevertheless, authorities are determined to dismantle the last vestiges of their zero COVID-19 policies.