CHONGQING: Elderly patients lined the wards of hospitals in major cities in China on Thursday as the country battled a wave of Covid cases. The virus is surging across China in an outbreak authorities say is impossible to track after the end of mandatory mass testing.
Attached to a breathing tube under a pile of blankets, an old man racked with Covid-19 lay groaning on a stretcher in the emergency department of a hospital in central China on Thursday. A paramedic at Chongqing Medical University First Affiliated Hospital, who confirmed the old man was a Covid patient, said he had picked up more than 10 people a day, 80 to 90% of whom were infected with coronavirus.
“Most of them are elderly people,” he said.
“A lot of hospital staff are positive as well, but we have no choice but to carry on working.” The old man waited half an hour to be treated, while in a nearby room AFP saw six other people in sick beds surrounded by harried doctors and relatives.
ALSO READ| Chaos, confusion plague China’s crematoriums
They, too, were mostly elderly and, when asked if they were all Covid patients, a doctor said: “Basically.”
Five were strapped to respirators and had obvious breathing difficulties. Millions of elderly people across China are still not fully vaccinated, raising concerns that the virus may kill the most vulnerable citizens in huge numbers.
A London-based health data firm called Airfinity estimated that more than 5,000 people are probably dying each day from Covid-19 in the country and around 1 million have been infected with the virus.
According to Reuters, Airfinity said its mortality risk analysis suggested between 1.3 to 2.1 million people could die in China’s current Covid outbreak.
WATCH |
Analyses by other modelling groups have also predicted as many as 2.1 million deaths But under new government guidelines, many of those deaths would not be blamed on Covid. The London based firm stated that the country may witness two peaks; covid cases may rise to 3.7 million a day in mid-January in those areas where cases are currently rising and another peak in March where infections could rise to 4.2 million a day in those provinces which currently, are not witnessing a spike.
Staff at the Chongqing hospital had their hands full, ferrying elderly patients to different floors as families and other visitors hovered anxiously.