The Chinese, “liberated” by the crown regime, are now on their own

Not so long ago, the message in the country of 1.4 billion people was still: We must bring the number of corona infections to zero. But a week ago China took a series of relaxations farewell to its unprecedented corona regime. The Chinese are not reassured and try to protect themselves as best they can.

It’s not easy, as many have already experienced. There is a serious shortage of both medicines and corona self-tests. The Chinese depend on the latter now that fewer and fewer test centers are open. The tests are also hardly available on the Internet, which means that there are long queues in some places in Beijing.

In reality there are no general practitioners, the Chinese are used to going to the hospital to get medicines prescribed there. The hospitals themselves are facing a staff shortage. Many doctors and their staff are also reportedly infected. If they have no symptoms, they still have to work, some channels report, which limits staff shortages but also makes hospitals hotbeds of infection.

How the release of the measures will play out is uncertain. Until recently, China kept track of each “crown fluff” with military precision, but even that policy has largely been abandoned. Contagion data is still being published, but only in cases where people have clear corona symptoms. It’s unclear exactly how many Chinese are infected, because there’s almost no testing at official sites anymore.

In cities like Beijing, there are long lines at pharmacies to buy self-tests:

The Chinese government has also put out a radically different message on corona in the last week. The virus has ‘weakened’ and actually doesn’t do much damage to health anymore: if you take it you might not even notice it, otherwise the symptoms will be mild. Staying home sick is the motto.

In Shanghai, the city that was under tight lockdown for two months earlier this year, many residents have walked out, Reuters news agency reported. They went shopping, visited the bustling Christmas markets, met up with friends and went out to dinner. But in Beijing, where the number of infections has soared, the picture is different, with the streets still noticeably empty.

Experts disagree on how many victims covid will make in China. Some models predict a peak next March, with 20,000 deaths a day and a million deaths overall. Previously, researchers from Shanghai University had come to a figure of 1.6 million dead. By way of comparison, the official corona death toll in the country is now over 5200. It is also questionable whether all corona deaths have been and will be recorded as such. There are reports that the guidelines for declaring corona as a cause of death have become stricter.

Meanwhile, the authorities are sending out optimistic messages. Health authorities today report that 14,000 ‘fever clinics’ have been opened in large hospitals and 33,000 in smaller ones. It is also underlined that 93 percent of the population has now had one or more vaccinations.