Millions getting infected by COVID in China: Official data

Beijing: As hospitals and morgues in China are overwhelmed by millions of Covid cases, official data projected that millions have been infected since December 1 while the government has permitted the opening up of “Internet Hospitals” for the affected people to seek medical help to reduce the overload on clinics.

There were nearly 37 million new infections nationwide as of Tuesday this week, officials cited data, highlighting for the first time the surge in cases across the country.

A leaked document purportedly from China’s National Health Commission suggested that about 248 million people around the country, roughly 17.56 per cent of the total population, were affected by the Covid surge between December 1 and 20, Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post newspaper reported.

The cases stated to be variants of Omicron spread like wildfire in the country after China overnight relaxed the zero-covid policy earlier this month.

Since then tracking cases became impossible as the government has done away with the testing.

Health officials in two Chinese cities reported lakhs of cases every day.

In Qingdao city in the eastern province of Shandong, about 490,000-530,000 people are becoming infected each day, according to Bo Tao, the head of the city’s health commission.

Bo said on Friday that the numbers were based on monitoring data and were expected to rise by 10 per cent on Saturday and Sunday.

He added that the city was experiencing “rapid transmission before the peak”.

The city’s health commission in Dongguan in the southern province of Guangdong said on Friday that between 250,000 and 300,000 people were being infected each day, the Post reported.

It said the growth rate based on computer modeling was rising and “many medical institutions and staff are facing unprecedented severe challenges and huge pressure”.

The commission also said that as of Thursday 2,528 medical staff in the city’s public hospitals and welfare system were working, despite having a fever or testing positive for Covid.

Meanwhile, ICUs in Beijing are still under stress as community transmission of Omicron has led to increasingly severe cases — most of whom are elderly — in a short period of time, state-run Global Times reported on Saturday.

Beijing only admitted seven Covid-related deaths so far amid reports of increasing arrivals at morgues and crematoriums.

As the rush of cases overwhelmed hospitals, the government for the first time allowed doctors to consult patients with Covid-related symptoms online and to prescribe drugs.

These services are known as “internet hospitals” and are part of an emerging sector offering online consultation, diagnosis, and treatment.

It was the first time that internet hospitals were allowed to prescribe drugs to patients without seeing them in person.

Before the policy shift, these facilities could only take follow-up appointments – not first-time consultations, the Post reported.

Meanwhile, despite concern over the rapid spreading of the virus cases, Beijing witnessed more and more people coming out to visit malls and dine-in restaurants. Traffic too picked up in the city on Friday.

Wang Guangfa, a respiratory expert from Peking University First Hospital, told the Global Times on Saturday that as the virus spread to the communities in Beijing, more elderly people and those with underlying diseases have been infected and that the capital city has witnessed an increase in the absolute number of severe cases.

As the number of cases climb and many medical workers get infected, there have been reports of staff shortages in hospitals across the country, especially in major cities that are undergoing the infection peak, the Global Times quoted Wang as saying.