Chinese funeral homes and hospitals, under a lot of pressure due to the spread of Covid

Chinese hospitals and funeral homes were under intense pressure on Wednesday because the wave of covid-19 exhausted their resources, while the scale of the outbreak and doubts about official data have led some countries to consider new rules for visitors from China.

The lifting of the restrictions, which came after widespread protests against them, has meant that Covid is spreading largely unchecked and is likely to infect millions of people a day, according to some international health experts.

Countries including the United States, India, Italy, Japan and Taiwan have declared that they will require COVID tests for travelers from China.

China’s overall vaccination rate exceeds 90%but the number of adults who have received a booster drops to 57.9%, and to 42.3% in the case of those over 80, according to government data from last week.

The country has nine vaccines against Covid domestically manufactured ones approved for use, but none have been updated to deal with the omicron variant, which is highly infectious.

China reported three new Covid-related deaths on Tuesday, up from one on Monday, figures that do not agree with what the funeral homes reportnor with the experience of much less populated countries after their reopening.

Beijing has said that it only registers as Covid-related deaths of patients caused by pneumonia and respiratory failure.

Staff at Huaxi, a large hospital in the southwestern city of Chengdu, said they were “extremely busy” treating Covid patients.

“I’ve been doing this job for 30 years and this is the busiest I’ve ever known,” said an ambulance driver outside the hospital who did not want to be named.

There were long lines in and out of the hospital emergency department and an adjacent fever clinic on Tuesday afternoon. Most of those arriving by ambulance received oxygen to help them breathe.

“Almost all the patients have Covid,” said a member of the emergency department pharmacy staff.

The hospital does not have stocks of specific medicines for Covid and can only provide drugs for symptoms such as coughing, he added.

The parking lots around Dongjiao Funeral Home, one of Chengdu’s largest, were full. Funeral processions followed one another while smoke billowed from the crematorium.

“Now we have to do this about 200 times a day,” said a funeral home worker. “We are so busy that we don’t even have time to eat.” This is so since the opening. Before it was about 30-50 a day.”

“Many have died of Covid“says another worker.

At another Chengdu crematorium, the private Nanling, the staff were just as busy.

“There have been a lot of deaths from Covid lately,” said one worker. “The cremation stalls are all taken. You can’t get one until the new year, maybe January 3 at the earliest.”

Zhang Yuhua, a senior official at Beijing Chaoyang Hospital, said most of the recent patients were elderly and seriously ill with underlying diseases. He claimed that the number of patients seen urgently had risen to 450-550 a day, up from 100 previously, according to state media.

The fever clinic at Beijing China-Japan Friendship Hospital was also “overcrowded” with elderly patients, state media reported.

Nurses and doctors have been asked to work while sick and retired medical workers from rural communities were being reinstated to help. Some cities have had trouble getting supplies of anti-fever medicine.