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China is strengthening its health care system on Tuesday by opening screening centers and installing hospital beds. The number of victims of Covid-19 would be largely underestimated by the authorities, according to experts.
As the Covid-19 epidemic explodes in China, several cities across the country opened screening centers and made hospital beds available on Tuesday. Authorities reported five Covid-19-related deaths on Tuesday, following two deaths reported the day before, the first in weeks. Largely underestimated figures, according to experts.
A population without natural immunity
In the name of a so-called “zero Covid” policy, China has imposed drastic health restrictions for almost three years, measures that have provoked virulent protests from the population. Now, China is starting to ease its stringent containment and testing policy.
In this country of 1.4 billion people with no natural immunity, the virus is spreading dangerously. There is growing international concern about the possible scale of deaths, the mutations of the virus and the consequences for the economy.
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In total, China has recorded 5,242 deaths from Covid since the outbreak of the pandemic in the central city of Wuhan at the end of 2019. A very low toll compared to those established in the rest of the world.
However, the accuracy of these official data is seriously questioned and China’s abandonment of restrictive measures – including most of the mandatory tests, on December 7 – has amplified doubts about the real impact of the disease.
Since then some hospitals have been attacked, pharmacies have seen their stocks of medicines emptied, while many people have imposed self-imposed containment measures, putting a strain on distribution services.
Crematoria in trouble
In Chongqing, a municipality-province with more than 30 million inhabitants (in the south-west of the country), a crematorium no longer has space to keep the bodies. In recent days their number has been “much greater than before,” said an employee that he did not want to give his name to AFP for security reasons.
“We are all very busy, there is no more room for the bodies in the cold rooms”, specified the interlocutor who was unable to say whether or not the deaths are related to Covid.
“Obviously we are busy, what place isn’t busy right now?” a crematorium in Baoding, near Beijing, pretends to ask 1,300 km away.
Some health experts estimate that 60% of people in China, equivalent to 10% of the world’s population, could be infected in the coming months, and more than 2 million could die.
With Reuters and AFP
