China’s hospitals are already under so much pressure that doctors and nurses can infect patients after the country’s rapid 180-degree change in Covid policy.
It appears that frontline medical workers are being asked to come in despite having the virus themselves due to staff shortages.
A Chinese professor specializing in health policy is monitoring the crisis in his home country from Yale University in the US.
Chen Xie told JEE News he was currently speaking to hospital directors and other medical staff in China about the massive strain on the system.
He said that those who are infected need to work in hospitals which creates an environment of transmission there.
Hospitals in China have hurriedly increased their fever ward capacity to cope with a large influx of patients, but these are filling up fast, as the message is still not getting through that if you catch the virus So it’s okay to stay at home.
Professor Chen says more needs to be done to explain this to people.
“There is no culture of staying at home for minor symptoms,” he said. “When people feel sick, they all go to the hospital, which can easily crash the health care system.”
A rush at pharmacies has led to significant shortages of cold or flu medicines across the country. Home testing kits for Covid are also hard to come by.
In Beijing, although restaurants are allowed to reopen, they have few customers and the streets are quiet.
Companies are asking employees to return to the office, but many don’t want to.
It all makes sense when you consider that, just a few weeks ago, the government was saying that zero Covid would make no difference, that infected people should go into centralized quarantine facilities and that lockdowns It was necessary.
