Asia-Pacific

Covid in China: doctors and nurses ‘told to work while infected’

China’s current surge in cases started ‘long before’ restrictions were lifted, WHO says

People queue to enter a hospital in Shanghai, China, amid a surge in Covid cases across the country. Photograph: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg

Thu Dec 15 2022 - 06:55

Chinese doctors and nurses are being told to keep working even when infected with Covid-19, staff and residents reported, as the virus rips through the population in the wake of eased restrictions.

Some hospitals in Beijing have up to 80 per cent of their staff infected, but many of them are still required to work due to staff shortages, a doctor in a large public hospital in Beijing told Reuters, adding he had spoken to his peers at other big hospitals in the capital.

All operations and surgeries had been cancelled at his hospital unless the patient was “dying tomorrow”, he said.

A senior World Health Organisation (WHO) official said on Wednesday that China’s flare-up started “long before” restrictions were lifted, but since the sudden shift in policy, big cities such as Beijing appear to have experienced a huge surge in cases of Covid-19. Authorities have said it is “impossible” to measure, since most people are not being tested.

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“The explosion of cases in China had started long before any easing of the zero-Covid policy,” WHO emergencies chief Michael Ryan said on Wednesday. “There’s a narrative that, in some way, China lifted the restrictions and all of a sudden, the disease is out of control,” he added at the UN health agency’s headquarters in Geneva.

“The disease was spreading intensively because the control measures in themselves were not stopping the disease.”

In Sichuan, a doctor surnamed Li told Reuters that their tertiary hospital was “overwhelmed with patients”.

“There are 700, 800 people with fever coming every day,” Mr Li said. “We are running out of medicine stocks for fever and cold. A few nurses at the fever clinic were tested positive, there aren’t any special protective measures for hospital staff and I believe many of us will soon get infected.”

Claims of rampant infections among hospital staff are also spreading across social media. One Chongqing resident said primary care in their city had “imploded”.

The outbreak is not limited to Beijing, and the sudden pivot in official policy and messaging about the dangers of the virus brought alarm and fear to some. Residents across other big cities told the Guardian it felt like “positive cases are everywhere”.

A Chongqing resident said all the teachers at their child’s school were positive and classes had moved online. In Zhengzhou, one person said many businesses had switched to working from home.

A Guangzhou resident said the streets were quiet, with many people at home, but businesses and restaurants were still open. “I tried to call the hospital hotline for fever but no one answered the phone,” she said. – Guardian

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