People wait outside a fever clinic at Tongren Hospital in Shanghai on Dec. 23, 2022, amid a neighborhood outbreak of Covid-19 infections.
Hector Retamal | Afp | Getty Images
BEIJING — Some Chinese provinces’ intensive care beds and resources are nearing capability as Covid-19 infections soar, national health authorities said Tuesday.
“In provinces currently experiencing high demand for intensive care, they’re nearing the critical threshold of accessible ICU beds and resources,” Jiao Yahui, director of the medical affairs department at China’s National Health Commission, said during a press conference. That is in accordance with a CNBC translation of the Mandarin remarks.
In such regions, Jiao said, “it’s vital to expand the supply of ICU beds and resources, or speed up turnover.”
Overall, Jiao claimed national availability of ICU beds was sufficient, at 12.8 per 100,000 people as of Dec. 25.
Early this month, mainland China abruptly ended many Covid controls. Infections have meanwhile surged, pressuring the country’s already stretched health system.
It’s unclear at what scale Covid outbreaks have hit the country, with few official figures on recent infections and deaths. China’s National Health Commission on Sunday stopped sharing each day figures after a halt in mandatory virus testing.
Some local governments have disclosed details on the regional situation.
Zhejiang province — bordering Shanghai — said Sunday that each day Covid infections within the region have surpassed 1 million, and can likely double to a peak of two million a day around Latest Yr’s. The province has a population of about 65.4 million.
Within the capital city of Beijing — one in all the earliest to see a Covid wave — the share of severe cases and elderly patients has increased at fever clinics, in accordance with an official report Saturday. It cited a director at a neighborhood hospital as saying the share of visits by the elderly had climbed from below 20% to almost 50%.
China’s health authorities were speaking Tuesday at a briefing on the country’s latest Covid measures, released late Monday. The policy changes included plans to scrap quarantine for inbound travelers starting Jan. 8.
“We view the brand new guidelines as a serious step towards the total reopening, but caution on the increased challenges to China’s medical system within the near term,” Goldman Sachs analysts said in a note Tuesday.
“The frontloaded China reopening timetable adds conviction to our below-consensus forecast for Q4 GDP growth (+1.7% yoy) and above-consensus 2023 GDP forecast (+5.2% yoy),” the analysts said.
