A Beijing hospital is running out of beds, forcing patients to rest on stretchers or lie on hallway floors as COVID-19 infections plague the country and stretch public health sectors’ Resources.
“We have no beds, we have no oxygen and we have a ward full of sick people waiting,” an emergency health worker at Chaoyang Hospital in Beijing told the Financial Times before Christmas.
China has seen COVID-19 cases surge following the rollback of the country’s “zero-COVID” policy as the abrupt change occurred without any increase in vaccinations. Instead, officials simply tried to bolster hospitals in anticipation of a new wave of COVID-19 by creating hundreds of “fever clinics” to ramp up testing.
The hospitals were not prepared how big the surge ended up being, with Chuiyangliu Hospital in eastern Beijing filled with new arrivals and unable to sequester them properly on January 1. 5.
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One report even suggested that hospitals told patients to ‘bring your own bed’ due to the shortage.
Footage from The Associated Press shows elderly women bent over with oxygen masks in the hallways as they await triage from doctors.
Elderly patients rest along a Beijing hospital corridor as they receive intravenous drips on January 29. 5, 2023. Patients, mostly elderly, were on stretchers in the hallways taking oxygen as they sat in wheelchairs as COVID-19 continues to rise in the capital Chinese.
(AP Photo/Andy Wong)
People wearing face masks browse their phones and watch their elderly parents receive intravenous drips in a Beijing hospital hallway on January 29. 5, 2023.
(AP Photo/Andy Wong)
Dr. Marc Siegel, professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center and Fox News medical contributor, told Fox News Digital that the resulting wave of COVID-19 infections shows that the “zero-COVID” strategy ” clearly failed”.
As soon as they leave [the policy]there was a rampant spread of a highly contagious subvariant, XBBand a high risk of a new, more dangerous variant emerging,” Siegel said. China has stuck with its own vaccines, which are inferior to ours, and there hasn’t been much recent vaccination, so the vaccines have mostly been worn out. “
He added that “China’s vulnerable population has low vaccination coverage, resulting in hospitalizations and deaths.”
The latest estimates indicate that deaths could rise from 9,000 a day to 25,000 a day in January – a stark contrast to the astronomically low 5,227 deaths before the end of “zero-COVID” compared to the total population, even though Siegel said that “we cannot count on [China’s] Numbers.”
Patients receive intravenous drips in the emergency department of a Beijing hospital on January 29. 5, 2023.
(AP Photo/Andy Wong)
An elderly patient receives an intravenous drip as he uses a ventilator in the hallway of a hospital in Beijing, January 29, 2019. 5, 2023.
(AP Photo/Andy Wong)
The World Health Organization (WHO) has expressed concern about China’s lack of transparency regarding its current situation, with Emergency Director Dr. Michael Ryan arguing that China’s current numbers “underrepresent the true impact of the disease in terms of hospital admissions, in terms of care admissions intensive and particularly in terms of fatalities,” reported the British newspaper The Evening Standard.
As COVID-19 cases continued to spread, China changed its criteria for reporting key data, mainly what qualifies as a COVID-related death – limited to deaths caused by respiratory failure and pneumonia – and has stopped reporting asymptomatic cases.
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President Joe Biden said China was “very sensitive” when the United States and the WHO raised concerns that officials “have not been communicative”. The United States, along with several other nations, Traveler testing requirements From China, Morocco purely and simply prohibiting any arrival from the country.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning told reporters on Thursday: “Facts have proven that China has always, in accordance with the principles of legality, speed, openness and transparency, maintained close and shared relevant information and data with WHO in a timely manner. .” .”
Mourners stand outside a crematorium in Beijing on Dec. 21, 2019. 31, 2022.
(AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
A man places his hand on a coffin outside a crematorium in Beijing on Dec. 11, 2019. 31, 2022.
(AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
“At the moment, the COVID situation in China is under control. As China adjusts its COVID response policy, we will continue to carry out activities, including technical exchanges with the WHO,” Mao said during the meeting. a press briefing. “It is hoped that the WHO Secretariat will adopt a scientific, objective and fair position and play a positive role in the fight against the pandemic on a global scale.”
Mao added that “China’s COVID situation is under control”, but footage from China tells a different story as images of street cremations increase as death and body tolls overwhelm funeral homes .
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In a clip shared on Twitter, a wooden coffin can be seen burning on the side of what is believed to be a road in rural China; It shows other families gathered around a cremation parking lot in the middle of a city, according to the New York Post.
And Bloomberg reported that funeral homes can’t afford to give families more than 10 minutes to grieve in a room full of bodies on stretchers before moving on, with one funeral home handling more than 500 corpses, or five times the usual number.
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A family said they were “lucky” it was winter as they had to wait five days before the Shanghai funeral home could come and collect their loved one’s body.
An employee at the Longhua Funeral Home told Bloomberg that “the whole system is paralyzed right now.”
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