But according to Kan, visits to the province's fever clinics peaked on Dec. 19 "after which it showed a continuous downward trend."

The stunning figure comes after hundreds of people protested outside a factory owned by manufacturer Zybio, which produces antigen tests, in the city of Chongqing. The protests reportedly turned violent, leading to clashes between demonstrators and police.

The surge in cases comes just one month after the Chinese Communist Party ended the country's strict "zero-COVID" policy, which placed heavy restrictions on the movement of people with China for close to three years.

Last week, hospitals in the capital of Beijing were reportedly running out of available beds to treat COVID-infected patients, forcing some to bring their own beds or sit on hallway floors.

"We have no beds, we have no oxygen, and we have a room full of sick people waiting," a health care worker in Beijing Chaoyang Hospital’ said. 

"As soon as they released [the policy], there was rampant spread of a highly contagious subvariant, XBB, and high risk of a new, more dangerous variant emerging," Siegel said. "China stuck with their own vaccines, which are inferior to ours, and there hasn't been much recent vaccine uptake, so the vaccines have mostly worn off."

The country's authoritarian leadership has moved swiftly to censor critics of its COVID policies, blocking over 1,000 accounts on the Sina Weibo social media platform that were critical of the government last week alone.

The company, which works closely with Chinese authorities to strictly monitor speech on the internet, said last week that it "will continue to increase the investigation and cleanup of all kinds of illegal content and create a harmonious and friendly community environment for the majority of users."