Covid fever has spread to as much as 70% of Shanghai’s population
After China’s dramatic U-turn on zero-Covid last month, a prominent Shanghai physician has speculated that as much as 70% of the city’s population may already be infected with Covid-19.
The vice president of Ruijin Hospital and a member of Shanghai’s Covid-19 expert advisory panel, Chen Erzhen, recently told the party mouthpiece People’s Daily that things had improved greatly since the city went into lockdown last spring, when more than 600,000 people were infected and nearly 600 died in a city of around 25 million people.
Many people at makeshift hospitals who had been tested with nucleic acid testing for infection turned out to be asymptomatic. More than 20 or 30 times as many people have been affected by the disease as were affected back then, according to Chen’s estimates.
According to him, the number of persons visiting his hospital’s emergency room has increased to 1,600 per day, with 80% of them being Covid-related; almost half of these instances involve particularly vulnerable populations, such as the elderly or the immunocompromised.
He also mentioned that the hospital had increased the number of emergency consultation rooms from four to eight, and had reassigned medical personnel from other units to work in the emergency room.
Since China lifted limitations on Covid infections last month, the country has stopped keeping track of daily instances. However, the spike in cases has put significant strain on the country’s health care system, with widespread infections among medical workers only compounding the problem.
“Despite the dramatic increase in the volume of patients, treatment is being carried out in a smooth, safe and orderly manner,” Chen said.
The provincial centre for disease management predicts that the peak will occur later this month in Zhejiang, a province neighbouring Shanghai, where the number of cases is currently increasing at a rate of nearly a million a day.
The centre also expressed concern that the risk of a surge in cases fueled by new variations would increase with the reopening of national borders and the Lunar New Year travel rush later this month.
It has been determined by researchers at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Ruijin Hospital, where Chen works, that the winter Covid-19 wave will have passed in many important cities like Beijing, Tianjin, Chongqing, and Chengdu by the time the Spring Festival begins on January 22. Nonetheless, they cautioned that holiday travel could lead to an increase in cases, especially in rural regions.
Managing epidemics in rural areas will be a “enormous challenge,” Jiao Yahui, director of the medical affairs section of the National Health Commission, told state television CCTV on Monday.
We are even more worried about the rural epidemic,” she said, referring to the fact that many city dwellers would be travelling to see relatives in the countryside.
“to ensure the supply of essential goods and epidemic control resources in rural areas” and “to protect the lives and health of rural residents to the greatest extent possible”. were announced by the administration on Saturday.
Jiao expressed concern that this year would be the first time in three that people could return home for Lunar New Year.