Funeral homes across China's COVID-hit capital Beijing, a city of 22 million, scrambled on Saturday to keep up with calls for funeral and cremation services as workers and drivers testing positive for the novel coronavirus called in sick.
After declaring that the Omicron strain has weakened, and unprecedented public protests against a zero-COVID policy championed by President Xi Jinping, China abruptly shifted its COVID managementMoving away from endless testing, lockdowns and heavy travel restrictions, China is realigning with a world that has largely reopened to live with COVID.
"We've fewer cars and workers now," a staffer at Miyun Funeral Home told Reuters, adding that there was a mounting backlog of demand for cremation services.It was not immediately clear if the struggle to meet the increased demand for cremation was due to a rise in COVID-related deaths. Still, the National Health Commission on Saturday reported no change to its official COVID death tally of 5,235.through 2023, according to the U.S.-based Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation .
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