- Hospitals, funeral homes overwhelmed by the wave of COVID
- Some countries impose testing standards on Chinese travelers
- China reports one new death from COVID on December 28
SHANGHAI/BEIJING, Dec 29 (Reuters) – China’s vast, under-resourced countryside is scrambling to bolster medical facilities before hundreds of millions of factory workers return to their families for the holidays of the Lunar New Year next month from cities where COVID-19 is on the rise. .
After imposing the world’s strictest COVID lockdown regime and relentless testing for three years, China reversed course this month to live with the virus, leaving its fragile health system overwhelmed.
According to some international health experts, the lifting of the restrictions, following widespread protests against them, means that COVID is spreading largely unchecked and is likely infecting millions of people a day.
China officially reported one new death from COVID on Wednesday, down from three on Tuesday, but foreign governments and many epidemiologists believe the numbers are much higher and that more than 1 million people may die on next year
China has said it only counts deaths of COVID patients caused by pneumonia and respiratory failure as COVID-related.
In the southwestern city of Chengdu, funeral homes were busy after dark on Wednesday, with a steady stream of cars entering one, which was heavily guarded by security personnel.
A van driver working for the salon said the last few weeks had been particularly busy and “there was a huge number of people” inside.
Hospitals and funeral homes in big cities have come under intense pressure, but the main concern about the health system’s ability to cope with the surge in infections is in the countryside.
At a pharmacy in Shanghai, Wang Kaiyun, 53, a city cleaner who comes from neighboring Anhui province, said she was buying medicine for her family at home.
“My husband, my son, my grandson, my mother, they are all infected,” she said. “They can’t get any medicine, nothing for fever or cough.”
Every year, hundreds of millions of people, mostly working in factories near the south and east coasts, return to the countryside for the Lunar New Year, which begins on January 22.
The holiday travel rush is expected to last 40 days, from Jan. 7 to Feb. 15, officials said.
The state-run China newspaper reported on Thursday that China’s rural regions were improving their medical treatment capabilities.
He said a hospital in a rural area of Inner Mongolia home to more than 100,000 people was seeking bidders for a 1.9 million yuan ($272,308) contract to upgrade its wards into intensive care units.
Liancheng County Central Hospital in the eastern province of Fujian was seeking tenders for ambulances and medical devices ranging from breathing machines to electrocardiogram monitors.
In December, hospital tenders for key medical equipment were two to three times higher than in previous months, according to a Reuters review, suggesting hospitals across the country were scrambling to cover shortages .
TEST REQUIREMENTS
The world’s second-largest economy is expected to suffer a slowdown in factory output and domestic consumption in the near term as workers and shoppers fall ill.
The contact-intensive services sector, which accounts for about half of China’s economic output, was hit by the country’s virus restrictions, which closed many restaurants and restricted travel. As China reopens, many companies in the service industry have no money to expand.
The reopening also raises the prospect of Chinese tourists returning to shopping streets around the world, once a market worth $255 billion a year worldwide. But some countries have been surprised by the scale of the outbreak and are skeptical of Beijing’s COVID statistics.
China’s official death toll of 5,246 since the pandemic began compares with more than 1 million deaths in the United States. Hong Kong, ruled by China, has reported more than 11,000 deaths.
The United States, India, Italy, Japan and Taiwan said they would require COVID tests for travelers from China. Britain was considering a similar move, the Telegraph reported.
The United States issued a travel alert on Wednesday advising Americans to “reconsider travel to China, Hong Kong and Macau” and citing “reports that the healthcare system is overwhelmed” along with the risk of new variants.
The main airport in the Italian city of Milan began testing passengers arriving from Beijing and Shanghai on December 26 and found that almost half of them were infected.
China has dismissed criticism of its statistics as baseless and politically motivated attempts to smear its policies. He has also downplayed the risk of new variants, saying he expects the mutations to be more virulent but less severe.
Omicron was still the dominant strain in China, Chinese health officials said this week.
Australia, Germany, Thailand and others said they would not impose additional travel restrictions for now.
For its part, China, whose borders have been virtually closed to foreigners since early 2020, will no longer require incoming travelers to enter quarantine starting January 8.
($1 = 6.9774 Yuan)
Additional reporting by Martin Quin Pollard in Chengdu; Written by Marius Zaharia; Edited by Lincoln Feast, Robert Birsel
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