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Beijing (AFP) – Nursing homes in China are fighting an uphill battle to protect their residents from the wave of coronavirus infections sweeping the country after the easing of the “zero covid” policy.
Many of them isolate themselves from the outside world and force their staff to sleep on site, while trying to get medicine at any cost.
Authorities have warned that the number of cases could rise rapidly.
Zhou Jian, an industry ministry official, said on Wednesday that the country was “doing everything possible to increase production of essential medicines.”
Experts fear China is ill-equipped to deal with the new wave of infections as the country abandons the stringent health measures it has enforced thus far, with millions of vulnerable elderly people still not receiving all their vaccine doses.
Nursing homes have been left alone, says the director of a private center in Beijing, who requested anonymity.
According to him, his center is “completely closed” and only food and goods can enter. No one can enter or leave the building.
The center ordered “expensive” medical supplies but a week later they still hadn’t arrived, he said. Also, the transportation network of the city is having problems due to covid cases among the delivery staff.
According to the residence manager, it is impossible to keep the virus at bay indefinitely.
“The bellboys and bellboys are almost all positive for covid,” he says. “Even if you sanitize or throw away all the outer packaging, you can’t spray all the food that arrives with disinfectant.”
Hospitals under pressure
Many Chinese nursing homes have been under lockdown for weeks now due to local government directives, such as Beijing’s Yuecheng Nursing Home, which reported last week that it had been under lockdown for nearly 60 days.
In Shanghai, the Xiangfu residence explained this week that it will continue its “management behind closed doors,” forcing all employees to sleep on the premises and testing them every day.
“At a time when society is optimizing prevention and control policies, our nursing home must above all maintain a high level of vigilance,” the center said in a statement.
The number of hospitalizations in infectious disease units has increased in the days following the lifting of restrictions in China last week.
The World Health Organization says the virus was already spreading in the country before and that “control measures alone had not stopped the disease”.
Since the sudden abandonment of the strict “covid zero” policy, funeral directors in the capital have seen a surge in business, they told AFP.
© 2022 AFP
