Beds Run Out, Doctors Struggle: Beijing Hospital Paints Grim Picture Of Latest Covid Surge — Report

The struggle inside a hospital in Beijing painted a grim picture as the latest Covid surge in China made more people sick.

Patients are treated in the emergency department of a hospital in Beijing.

Source : AFP

New Delhi: A Beijing hospital has run out of beds as China continues to record a surge in the number of people affected by Covid-19. A report by Associated Press (AP) says that patients were lying in stretchers in the hallways due to a lack of beds while doctors and nurses rushed to take care of the most urgent cases in the Chuiyangliu hospital.

By midmorning, the hospital had run out of beds even as ambulances continued to bring those in need. Meanwhile, nurses and doctors continued to navigate through the caseload while prioritising urgent cases. 

The report says that it was mostly elderly patients who were lying on stretchers and taking oxygen while they were seated in wheelchairs.

The surge in cases was followed by China's abandonment of its most severe pandemic restrictions last month after nearly three years of lockdowns

China has been recording a surge in Covid-19 cases after the government lifted strict Covid-19 restrictions following widespread protests by the public. The country has also been criticised for not sharing the true picture of the recent surge with the World Health Organisation warning that the official statistics on Covid-19 deaths are not showing the true impact of the outbreak.

According to a report by The Guardian, the data reported by WHO reveals that China’s CDC analysis showed a predominance of Omicron sublineages BA.5.2 and BF.7 among locally acquired infections. However, Omicron remains the dominant coronavirus variant based on recent genomic sequencing.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus earlier said the UN agency officials held high-level talks in recent weeks with counterparts in China. 

“We continue to ask China for more rapid, regular, reliable data on hospitalisation and deaths, as well as more comprehensive, real-time viral sequencing,” Tedros said, as reported by The Guardian.

Following the increase in the number of cases, the European Union has brought out a number of checks for travellers from China such as coronavirus tests for airline passengers coming from China and the requirement of negative test results 48 hours before departure. The report says that the European Union on Wednesday “strongly encouraged” its member states to impose pre-departure Covid testing of passengers from China.