China’s capital is facing its toughest two weeks so far in the pandemic. The city’s tried and tested hospital must prepare for demanding days. – The infection is not only high. What we have felt in the last week is an epidemic tsunami, says the Chinese professor, Wang Guangfa. He is an expert in lung diseases. – The hospitals in Beijing must as quickly as possible get ready to receive far more seriously ill patients. An infection peak will come in the next 1-2 weeks, says Guangfa. The interview with the professor is now going viral on Chinese social media. The professor, who works for Beijing University No. 1 Hospital, was first interviewed by the medical journal, Yixuejie (Medical Society). Following demands for daily PCR tests in several places in China, the authorities last week moved away from counting infected people without symptoms. No one therefore knows for sure how many are infected anymore. Photo: NOEL CELIS / AFP Queue at the morgues In the Chinese capital, the streets are rarely empty. But today many people stay at home. The infection makes it difficult to get enough people to work. Everything from pharmacies to morgues are struggling to staff the shifts, which are necessary to keep society running. From last weekend until now, the news agency Reuters has documented queues at the crematoria. Some have been asked to deliver their dead family members themselves. People that news has spoken to also tell of queues when they had an elderly family member delivered to the mortuary. The family member died after being infected by corona. The cold rooms in the basements of several hospitals must also be full. A man has retrieved an urn from a crematorium in Beijing. In the Chinese capital, crematoria are struggling to accept more dead people at the same time as increased infection means that fewer people are at work. Photo: NOEL CELIS / AFP Believes the healthcare system has not had time On 7 December, after almost three years of zero tolerance for infection, China abruptly reversed its infection control policy. Several people have asked whether the country’s leaders have given the healthcare system enough time to prepare. Professor Guangfa says in another interview with the government-loyal newspaper Global Times that hospitals and the healthcare system are running out of time. – We must act quickly and prepare fever clinics and emergency bed stations for the seriously ill, he says. At the beginning of December, Chinese cities began to relax their infection control measures. Now the infection is increasing rapidly in Beijing, according to the authorities. Photo: Andy Wong / AP Changing the registration China has so far had few corona deaths compared to its population of 1.4 billion. According to the official figures, the number of dead in China is just over 5,000. Calculations made by, among others, the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluations in the USA show that the figure could be much higher. The institute believes that one million people in China may die from corona during 2023. Other estimates show both higher and lower figures. Today, the authorities announced that they will change how corona deaths are registered. Going forward, those with an underlying illness will not be counted as covid dead. Only those who die due to respiratory diseases will be included in the covid calculation. Frustration over strict infection control rules has increased during the autumn and ended with student protests on the last weekend in November. Here from Tsinghua University in Beijing. Photo: OBTAINED BY REUTERS / Reuters Increasing hospital capacity When China reversed its infection control policy, the country abruptly moved away from demands for daily PCR tests, shutdowns and apps that tracked everywhere you moved. By then, the infection was already rapidly rising in Beijing and several other of China’s million cities. Now the infection has almost exploded. Already last week, there were reports of infection between patients and health workers at the hospitals in Beijing. The fever clinics were overcrowded. Over the next few days, new fever clinics will be opened in sports halls in Beijing. Across China, work is being done to increase hospital capacity. Three infection peaks expected Experts say China can count on three infection peaks during the winter. – In the cities that are now experiencing a peak in infections, work must be done to make room for intensive care beds and to prepare the doctors and nurses who have the most experience, says Professor Guangfa to the Global Times. In an attempt to keep the wheels of society moving, the authorities say in several places that infected people with mild symptoms can go to work. At several hospitals in Beijing, it was already discussed last week that doctors and nurses who are infected can treat covid patients. This is written by the financial newspaper Caixin, which is considered very credible. The assumption is that the employees do not have severe symptoms.
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Warning from lung professor Wang Guangfa goes viral in China – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
