Officials at crematoriums in Beijing said on Friday their institutions were flooded with an unprecedented wave of Covid-19 cases in China, which officials said would soon reach rural areas of the country.
The epidemic is spreading rapidly across the country a week after most of the health restrictions that have been in place for nearly three years have been lifted.
Authorities admit it is now “impossible” to count the number of cases.
“We burn 20 bodies a day, mostly elderly people. A lot of people have gotten sick lately,” an official from the crematorium told AFP. “More than 10 of the 60 people working here have tested positive for Covid, but we have no choice because there is a lot of work,” he said.
Workers at two other funeral homes in Beijing interviewed by AFP said their organization operates 24 hours a day and offers same-day cremation services to meet peak demand. Another establishment of this type stated that the waiting list is one week.
Despite this, official figures have not recorded any deaths due to Kovid-19 since 4 December.
The organization to combat COVID-19 has urged local governments to increase surveillance and medical care for people returning to their homes in rural areas ahead of the Chinese New Year holiday in January.
The event causes the world’s largest population to relocate each year. It is expected to increase even more this year as inter-provincial travel restrictions are lifted.
Chinese state media and health experts downplay the danger of the omicron variant, and respiratory specialist Zhong Nanshan has suggested renaming Covid-19 as “virus flu”.
Yet millions of older people are not vaccinated, and antigen testing and fever medications are inadequate.
A recent study by researchers at the University of Hong Kong claimed that unless a fourth dose of vaccine or new restrictions are introduced, covid could kill a million people in China this winter.
Officially, only nine deaths have been attributed to the outbreak since mid-November. The country has since recorded more than 10,000 daily cases.
Several videos of covid patients sitting on benches outside crowded hospitals and receiving saline infusions went viral on social networks.
AFP was able to geolocate one shot in front of a hospital in Hanchuan city (centre) in Hubei province. A hospital official confirmed that the footage is from Tuesday.
“Patients offered to sit in the sun as there were a lot of people inside,” he told AFP.
source: Noticias
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.