CHENGDU (Reuters) -Chinese hospitals were under intense pressure on Wednesday as a surge of COVID-19 infections strained resources within the last major country to maneuver towards treating the virus as endemic.
In an abrupt change of policy, China this month began dismantling the world’s strictest COVID regime of lockdowns and extensive testing, putting its battered economy on the right track for an entire re-opening next yr.
The easing of restrictions, which got here after widespread protests against them, means COVID is spreading largely unchecked and sure infecting thousands and thousands of individuals a day, in keeping with some international health experts.
The speed at which COVID rules have been scrapped has left China’s fragile health system overwhelmed and prompted countries all over the world, which have been “living with the virus”, to think about travel restrictions for Chinese visitors.
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China reported three recent COVID-related deaths for Tuesday, up from one for Monday – numbers which can be inconsistent with the experience of much less populous countries after they re-opened.
Staff at Huaxi, a giant hospital within the southwestern city of Chengdu, said they were extremely busy caring for patients with COVID, as they’ve been ever since curbs were eased on Dec. 7.
“I’ve been doing this job for 30 years and that is the busiest I actually have ever known it,” said one ambulance driver outside the hospital who declined to be identified.
There have been long queues inside and outdoors the hospital’s emergency department and at an adjoining fever clinic on Tuesday evening. Most of those arriving in ambulances got oxygen to assist with their respiration.
“Almost the entire patients have COVID,” one emergency department pharmacy staff member said.
The hospital has no stocks of COVID-specific medicine and might only provide drugs for symptoms corresponding to coughing, she said.
Zhang Yuhua, an official on the Beijing Chaoyang Hospital, said most up-to-date patients were elderly and critically unwell with underlying diseases. She said the variety of patients receiving emergency care had increased to 450-550 per day, from about 100 before, in keeping with state media.
Pictures published by state-run China Day by day showed rows of mostly elderly patients, some respiration through oxygen tubes, receiving treatment from medical staff in white hazmat suits within the hospital’s intensive care unit.
In a serious step towards freer travel, China will stop requiring inbound travellers to enter quarantine from Jan. 8, authorities said this week, prompting many Chinese, cut off from the world for thus long, to ascertain travel platforms.
But while online searches for flights spiked on Tuesday from extremely low levels, residents and travel agencies suggested a return to anything like normal would take some months yet, given worries about COVID and more careful spending due to the impact of the pandemic.
Furthermore, some governments were considering extra travel requirements for Chinese visitors.
U.S. officials cited “the dearth of transparent data, including viral genomic sequence data” as reasons for doing so.
India and Japan would require a negative COVID test for travellers from mainland China, with those testing positive in Japan having to undergo every week in quarantine. Tokyo also plans to limit airlines increasing flights to China.
Asked concerning the travel requirements imposed by Japan and India, a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday “COVID measures ought to be scientific, moderate and mustn’t affect the conventional flow of people”.
China’s $17 trillion economy is anticipated to suffer a slowdown in factory output and domestic consumption as employees and shoppers fall unwell.
News of China re-opening its borders sent global luxury stocks higher, however the response was more muted in other corners of the market, because the world’s second-largest economy is more likely to face subdued global demand in 2023.
U.S. carmaker Tesla plans to run a reduced production schedule at its Shanghai plant in January, extending the restricted output it began this month into next yr, in keeping with an internal schedule reviewed by Reuters.
Tesla didn’t specify a reason for the planned production slowdown.
Once the initial shock of latest infections passes, some economists expect Chinese growth to bounce back with a vengeance from what is that this yr expected to be its lowest rate in nearly half a century, somewhere around 3%.
Morgan Stanley economists expect 5.4% growth in 2023, while those at Goldman Sachs see 5.2%.
(Reporting by Marting Quin Pollard in Chengdu, Chen Lin in Singapore and Shanghai and Beijing bureaus; Writing by Marius Zaharia; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)
Copyright 2022 Thomson Reuters.
