BEIJING (AP) — Amid emerging COVID-19 cases, China is establishing extensive care services and seeking to bolster hospitals as it reverses antivirus checks that have confined millions of people to their homes, crushed economic expansion and sparked protests.
President Xi Jinping’s government has officially pledged to prevent transmission of the virus, the latest major country to attempt to do so. But the latest measures recommend that the ruling Communist Party tolerate more instances without quarantine or business closures as its “zero-COVID strategy” ends.
A cabinet assembly on Thursday called for a “full mobilization” of hospitals, adding to ensure their “combat effectiveness” and expand the source of medicines, according to state media. Officials were asked to monitor the fitness of all other seniors 65 and older in their area.
It’s unclear how much the number of infections has risen since Beijing last week ended mandatory once-a-day testing in many areas. But interviews and social media accounts imply there are outbreaks in businesses and schools across the country. Some restaurants and other businesses have closed because too many workers are sick.
Virus testing in Beijing’s Runfeng Shuishang district was shut down because all its workers were infected, the community government said Saturday on its social media account. “Please be patient,” he said.
The official number of cases is declining, but they no longer cover large portions of the population after mandatory testing ended Wednesday in many areas. that they have ended and other restrictions and seek to live with the virus.
On Sunday, the government reported 10,815 new cases, adding 8,477 without symptoms. That’s a little a quarter of last week’s daily peak above 40,000, but it only represents other people getting tested after being admitted to hospitals or for jobs in schools and other high-end places. risk sites.
The western province of Shaanxi has set aside 22,000 hospital beds for COVID-19 and is in a position to increase its ample care capacity by 20 percent by converting more beds, Shanghai’s The Paper newspaper reported, citing Yun Chunfu, an official with the provincial health commission. . . Yun said cities are “accelerating modernization” of hospitals for “seriously ill patients. “
“Every village should designate a hospital with full strength and superior treatment point” for COVID-19 cases, Yu said at a press conference.
China has 138,000 intensive care beds, Jiao Yahui, director-general of the Medical Administration Bureau of the National Health Commission, said at a press conference on Friday. That’s less than one consistent with 10,000 people.
Health resources are unevenly distributed. Hospital beds are concentrated in Beijing, Shanghai and other cities on the filthy rich east coast. Thursday’s closet told officials to make sure certain rural spaces have “equitable access” to medicines and medicines.
China’s controls have kept its infection rate low, but crushed an already weak economic expansion and prompted judgments about emerging human costs. The official death toll stands at 5,235, compared with 1. 1 million in the United States.
The official total number of cases in China of 363,072 rose nearly 50 percent from the Oct. 1 point after a wave of outbreaks across the country.
Protests erupted on November 25 after another 10 people died in a chimney in the northwestern city of Urumqi. Netizens asked whether firefighters or others seeking to escape were blocked through locked doors or other anti-virus measures. The authorities denied this, but the crisis is a hotbed. of public anger.
Xi’s government pledged to cut prices and disruptions after the economy contracted 2. 6 percent from the last quarter in the three months to June. This after Shanghai and other shopping malls closed for up to two months to combat the epidemic.
Forecasters say the economy is very likely to contract in the current quarter. Imports fell 10. 9% from a year earlier in November, reflecting weak demand. The 8. 1 forged of the year consistent with the expansion of the cent.
It is not clear that any of the adjustments were a reaction to the protests.
In an official show of confidence, the second leader, Premier Li Keqiang, appeared via state media at an assembly with the heads of the International Monetary Fund and other monetary institutions without masks last week in the eastern city of Huangshan. Earlier, Xi skipped a photo shoot with Russian and Central Asian leaders at a summit in Uzbekistan in September where others did not wear masks.
Still, fitness experts and economists say “zero COVID” is expected to remain in position until at least mid-2023, as millions of seniors want to get vaccinated before restrictions preventing maximum visitors from leaving China are lifted. The government last week introduced a crusade to vaccinate the elderly, a procedure that can take months.
Experts warn that there is still a chance the ruling party could reimpose restrictions if it fears hospitals will be overwhelmed.
Meanwhile, experts cited through state media have called on the public to reduce pressure on hospitals by treating mild COVID-19 cases at home and postpone treating less serious problems.
Patients queue for up to six hours to enter fever clinics. Reports on social media imply that some hospitals are turning away patients whose disorders are deemed severe enough to require urgent treatment.
“Going blindly to the hospital” drains resources and can delay the remedying of severe cases, “leading to serious risk,” Chen Erzhen, vice president of Shanghai Ruijin Hospital, told the newspaper.
“We introduced the quest to manage fitness at home,” Chen said. “Leave medical resources to others who want treatment. “