Building new gigantic hospital after severe coronavirus outbreak in China – VG

China is working hard to quell a major new coronavirus outbreak and is now building a giant temporary hospital.

A makeshift hospital and quarantine facilities with a capacity of nearly 250,000 beds for covid patients are under construction in southern China’s Guangzhou city, according to the news agency. Reuters.

China is now experiencing the largest corona infection outbreak since April this year. According to Chinese authorities, several major cities, including Chongqing and the capital Beijing, are now battling the infection.

Since the 2020 outbreak, China has adopted a strict anti-covid policy.

The large city of Guangzhou, with 19 million inhabitants, is now battling the new outbreak and has registered 8,761 new covid-infected people at the latest daily registration.

Frustrated residents

The outbreak is causing concern among the population and on Monday the city saw a demonstration in one of the hardest-hit neighborhoods.

Authorities have ordered people in several districts to stay at home and non-essential businesses have had to close. Last week, education authorities decided that teaching in most schools should be done digitally, according to CNBC.

The closure measures are not popular and residents are expressing frustration on social media.

– We had to close in April, and then again in November (…) The government didn’t give us any financial support. Do they think my rent doesn’t cost money?, one wrote on Weibo, China’s monitored version of Twitter, on Monday, according to the report. Cnn.

Others posted asking the authorities to “go to hell”, while some accused them of “talking nonsense”.

Critical stage

The city is therefore accelerating the construction of makeshift hospitals and quarantine centers and, according to city officials, they plan to build to house 246,407 beds in the city.

But they don’t know how long the epidemic will last or how many people will be infected.

“It’s better to be prepared, even if the beds are not being used,” Wang Baosen, a city official, told a news conference on Thursday.

He said the situation in the city is at a critical stage.

The big city of Shanghai was closed for two months after a major epidemic in April this year. By then, more than 300,000 hospital beds will have been used, according to Reuters.

Contagion is on the rise in China, which recorded 23,276 new infections on Thursday. There are just over 3,000 more cases than the day before and the country now has the highest number of daily infections since April.

The Institute of Public Health in Norway also reports that a new wave of covid-19 is underway here in Norway. But it’s unclear how big the surge will be, but it likely won’t put a strain on hospitals compared to the 2022 summer surge, writes FHI.

– Already in Norway

Preben Aavitsland, senior physician at FHI, tells VG that China’s population has less immunity than the population of most other countries because too few have been vaccinated with good vaccines and very few have been infected. This makes it difficult when the epidemic grows. There could be many hospitalizations, he believes.

– Because the virus now (the micron variant) is so highly contagious, very tough measures are needed to suppress and contain the outbreak, says Aavitsland.

– Is it a different variant of the virus and will it come to Norway?

– The coronavirus is in Norway and will always be here. There are no other viruses in China, she says.

– What is the advice for people who will travel to China?

– There is a higher risk of infection in Norway than in China. People considering traveling to China should expect stringent testing and quarantine measures upon entry.

Read more here: China – travel information – regjeringen.no