+34Chinese hospitals and funeral homes are under intense pressure as a surging COVID wave drains resources
U.S. joins several countries mandating tests for China arrivals CHENGDU, Dec 28 - Chinese hospitals and funeral homes were under intense pressure on Wednesday as a surging COVID-19 wave drained resources, while the scale of the outbreak and doubts over official data prompted some countries to enact newIn an abrupt change of policy, China this month began dismantling the world's strictest COVID regime of lockdowns and extensive testing, putting its battered economy on course for a complete re-opening next year.
The lifting of restrictions, following widespread protests against them, means COVID is spreading largely unchecked and likely infecting millions of people a day, according to some international health experts.became the fifth country after India, Italy, Japan and Taiwan to say it would require COVID tests for travellers from China. The speed at which China, the last major country in the world moving towards treating the virus as endemic, has scrapped COVID rules has left its fragile health system overwhelmed. China's overall vaccination rate is above 90% but the rate for adults who have had booster shots drops to 57.9%, and to 42.3% for people aged 80 and older, according to government data last week. The country has nine domestically-developed COVID vaccines approved for use, but none has been updated to target the highly infectious Omicron variant. China reported three new COVID-related deaths for Tuesday, up from one for Monday - numbers that are inconsistent with what funeral parlours are reporting, as well as with the experience of much less populous countries after they re-opened. China has said it only counts deaths of COVID patients caused by pneumonia and respiratory failure as COVID-related. Staff at Huaxi, a big hospital in the southwestern city of Chengdu, said they were "extremely busy" with COVID patients. "I've been doing this job for 30 years and this is the busiest I have ever known it," said one ambulance driver, who declined to be identified. There were long queues inside and outside the hospital's emergency department and at an adjacent fever clinic on Tuesday evening. Most of those arriving in ambulances were given oxygen to help with their breathing.The hospital has no stocks of COVID-specific medicine and can only provide drugs for symptoms such as coughing, she said. Car parks around the Dongjiao funeral home, one of the biggest in Chengdu, were full. Funeral processions were constant as smoke billowed from the crematorium. "We have to do this about 200 times a day now," said one funeral worker. "We are so busy we don't even have time to eat. This has been the case since the opening up. Before it was around 30-50 a day."Medical workers attend to patients at a makeshift fever clinic inside a gymnasium, amid the coronavirus disease outbreak in Fuzhou, Fujian province, China December 28, 2022. cnsphoto via REUTERS
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