In the face of China’s worst Covid outbreak, doctors are working despite being infected as hospitals are cramped with the elderly struggling to breathe. China is reportedly witnessing packed hospitals, overwhelmed doctors, overcrowded crematoriums, piled up bodies in mortuaries and on the roadsides, and long queues outside clinics owing to the alarming surge in Covid cases.
Nankai Hospital in Tianjin, around 140 kilometres (90 miles) southeast of the capital Beijing, on Wednesday saw more than two dozen mostly elderly patients lying on gurneys in public areas of the emergency department, as per AFP. A doctor noted that the emergency room was much busier than usual ‘because of the outbreak’. ‘Medical staff are pretty much all expected to continue working despite testing positive for the virus,’ he added.
Several videos have emerged showing piles of bodies of Covid patients on the roadsides. As Covid gripped several Chinese cities, hospitals are grappling with a shortage of hospital beds, medicines, and ICUs. Videos have also emerged on social media showing heaps of dead bodies lying around funeral homes. Workers who have been engaged in helping the bodies cremate have reportedly contracted the virus.
To make conditions even worse, the Chinese National Health Commission has stopped publishing Covid data. ‘Relevant COVID information will be published by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention for reference and research,’ said the health commission in a statement, as per Reuters. Notably, neither did NHC specify any reason for the same nor did it inform when and how frequently the Covid information will be updated.
As per a report in Bloomberg news, an internal meeting of the National Health Commission revealed that around 248 million people, which is nearly 18% of China’s population, were infected in the first 20 days of December.