Via Sixth Tone: ‘It’s Insane’: China’s Doctors Struggle to Cope Amid COVID Surge. Excerpt:
Just weeks after China ended its “zero-COVID” policy, Dr. Xu Zuping and her outpatient department find themselves confronting an unprecedented crisis.
The team in Shanghai is treating up to 600 patients a day — almost 20% more than the same period last year, Xu estimates. And they’re having to do so with four out of six doctors infected with COVID-19.
“I’ve worked at this hospital for over 30 years, but I’ve never seen the emergency room as busy as it is now,” says Xu, who spoke with Sixth Tone using a pseudonym to protect her privacy. “Ambulances keep arriving with people in a critical condition. When I treat my patients, I constantly worry about whether there are enough seats in the infusion center.”
Hospitals all over China are struggling to cope as a wave of COVID-19 infections rips through the population. Doctors describe shocking levels of overcrowding, shortages of key supplies, and medical teams weakened by mass infections.
China abruptly dismantled its strict “zero-COVID” system in early December, and since then the virus has spread at breakneck speed. It’s unclear how many people have been infected, but local authorities estimate that case numbers in Shanghai alone have surpassed 10 million.
A surge in hospitalizations soon followed. According to China’s health commission, around 8% of COVID-19 patients in China developed pneumonia in 2022. Though this appears to be a relatively low ratio, it translates into a huge number of people with lung infections due to China’s vast population.
By the end of December, Xu’s department was already receiving record numbers of patients. The team is based at one of two major hospitals in Chongming — an island on the northeastern tip of Shanghai, where the Yangtze River bleeds into the East China Sea.
Most of the patients are in their 80s and 90s, and the vast majority have pneumonia, Xu says. The hospital’s emergency room has been completely overrun.
“Given the crisis at the emergency room, we can no longer transfer patients for hospitalization,” she says. “The few remaining beds in the inpatient department are reserved for patients from the emergency room.”
