First modification:
Faced with the Omicron tsunami unleashed by the relaxation of epidemic prevention measures and the end of the Covid zero strategy, the number of contaminations skyrockets and hospitals are overwhelmed.
With Stéphane Lagarde, RFI correspondent in Beijing
Suitcases on wheels and transparent plastic bags containing a blanket, a change of clothes, an iron bowl and a large thermos. These are the personal belongings that families hope to hand over to patients at the Covid ER at Beijing Chaoyang Hospital.
In front of the entrance, two old men wait on stretchers. “Is there room? At the moment it is difficult to get beds, “says a nurse. “I accompany a patient, and first you have to see an emergency doctor to get in,” she adds.
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Given the explosion of cases of infections, it was necessary to make room. In the capital, the services reserved for fever patients have been reinforced. A Beijing woman in her sixties came to bring diapers for her father, who was hospitalized. “When I arrived here a few days ago, the department had just opened. It’s a new department. There are many patients and four died yesterday. They give priority to older people in serious condition,” she told RFI.
Given the magnitude of the Covid-19 wave in Beijing, emergency services are overwhelmed. Authorities have reclassified the disease and death criteria for viral pneumonia. “My father is 93 years old, he has common pneumonia according to the doctors. But he tested positive for Covid, like most of the patients in this room, all of whom are infected with the virus,” adds the woman from Beijing.
Also read: China reopens its borders after three years of strict restrictions due to covid-19
On Sunday, December 25, the National Health Commission stopped publishing its daily reports on the epidemic. It also modified the criteria for computing the victims of covid-19 to those who died from respiratory failure caused by the infection, which according to experts will hide the deaths from this upturn.
