A large number of Chinese have posted on social platforms in recent days disclosing their re-infection with COVID-19. However, the Chinese regime’s mouthpiece media quickly published an article to deny that China is experiencing another wave of COVID-19.

Many people across the country claimed that they had been re-infected with COVID-19 and posted their positive antigens test results on social media. Since April 20, “positive again” became the most searched word online in China.

Wei Min (pseudonym), a Nanjing resident, told The Epoch Times on April 23 that he began to develop symptoms on April 21. They bought a COVID-19 antigen reagent kit to test at home, and the result was positive.

“In fact, the virus is everywhere,” Wei said that he traveled to a different region in China on April 21, and he may have been infected there. This is the second time he has been infected with COVID-19.

It has been more than five months since the peak of the COVID-19 mass infection occurred in mainland China at the end of last year. The re-infection cases have drawn increasing public attention.

China’s top virologist suggested people prepare for another wave of outbreaks.

Zhang Wenhong, China’s director of the National Center for Infectious Diseases and director of the Department of Infectious Diseases at Huashan Hospital affiliated with Fudan University, said at the “Infection and Immunity Summit” on April 20 that as the virus mutates, COVID-19 re-infections will occur after 6 months. If the mutation of the new virus effectively breaks through the immune barrier formed by the human body in response to the previous wave of viruses, there will be a peak of infections in the next wave of the outbreak.

He called for stockpiling small-molecule antivirals for COVID-19 and recommended that vulnerable groups be vaccinated again after 6 months.

The public in China is concerned about new strains of the virus spreading in the country, such as XBB.1.16.

XBB.1.16 is a recombinant strain of the Omicron variant of COVID-19, which belongs to the XBB family and is commonly known as “Arcturus.” It has already caused fatalities. Thailand reported a death from XBB.1.16 earlier this month.

According to the data released by China’s CDC on April 22, from April 14 to 20, 275 patients were infected with newly discovered key mutant strains, including 42 infections by XBB.1.16; and 12 local key mutant strains were newly detected. On April 15, China CDC reported the country’s first 15 cases of XBB.1.16 infections, which means that it increased by 27 cases within a week.

The numbers might not reflect the true scale of the infections, as the CCP has concealed the truth of the COVID-19 outbreak in the country since the beginning of the pandemic, and it is difficult for the outside world to obtain accurate data.

According to Chinese media, the director of the Department of Infectious Diseases at Run Run Shaw Hospital Affiliated with Zhejiang University School of Medicine admitted that since the mutant strain XBB has been detected in the country, patients who have previously tested positive for COVID-19 may be re-infected with the mutated strain. Li Tong, chief physician of the Department of Infectious Diseases at Beijing You’an Hospital, said that XBB.1.16 is more contagious, but the pathogenicity has not changed significantly.

Meanwhile, the Chinese regime’s English media outlet Global Times quickly published an article on April 23 denying that China is experiencing another wave of COVID-19 outbreaks. It downplayed the possible scale of the next wave, citing Chinese virologists saying that “reinfection cases are rare” and “the scale of the next wave won’t be huge.”

Xiao Lusheng and Hong Ning contributed to this report.