Locals line up for treatment at Beijing Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital on June 1, 2022.
CFOTO | Future publications | Getty Images
BEIJING — About half of the nearly 2,000 employees on the Beijing Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital contracted Covid-19 throughout the latest wave, director Liu Qingquan said on Wednesday.
Liu told reporters that every one staff had recovered with traditional Chinese medicine. Of the 1,000 infected staff, he said, just one who already had hypertension developed pneumonia.
China is encouraging the use of traditional Chinese medicine together with Western Covid-19 treatment. As an alternative of pharmaceutical drugs, traditional Chinese medicine relies on herbal remedies and natural methods to assist the body heal itself.
The omicron variant swept China in December as authorities abruptly ended most Covid controls. Local businesses reported that almost all of their employees fell unwell inside per week before recovering. Local authorities said tens of hundreds of people flocked to fever clinics in Beijing alone in at some point.
Liu said that resulting from the surge in patients, doctors and nurses were unable to return home for several days. He said healthcare staff sometimes needed to work while they were sick and taking medication.
Over the past two weeks, officials in Beijing and other Chinese urban centers have said the worst of the Covid-19 outbreak is over.
Although the situation has calmed down, “from the attitude of the hospital, our pressure continues to be very high,” said Wang Guiqiang, director of the infectious diseases department at Beijing University Hospital, on Wednesday. That is based on CNBC’s translation of his remarks in Mandarin.
The hospital turned extra wards into intensive care areas and trained doctors to change into ICU nurses, Wang said.
Covid-19 drug from Pfizer
Within the aftermath of China’s recent wave of COVID-19, locals have also rushed to top off on medicine, leading to shortages and long lines outside pharmacies last month.
PfizerWang said that the drug Paxlovid for treating Covid continues to be in brief supply within the country. Nevertheless, he said the drug would soon be manufactured in China by a neighborhood company.
Pfizer has signed a take care of a neighborhood partner to fabricate Paxlovid in China, CEO Albert Bourla said Monday on the JPMorgan Health Care Conference, based on the record. He said local production could start in as little as three or 4 months.
Paxlovid will only be covered by basic medical health insurance in China to March 31, China’s Healthcare Security Administration said on Sunday. The drug was not included within the annual list of covered drugs because Pfizer charged too high a price, the administration said.
Bourla’s CEO said what China was willing to pay was “lower than the bottom in the center” price range – a price range 60% to 70% below what high-income countries pay.
“We didn’t agree,” Bourla said. “They’re the second largest economy on this planet. And I do not think they need to pay lower than that [El] Salvador.”
If negotiations don’t turn things around by April, Bourla said “we are going to proceed with the private market in China, which is important.”
He said demand for Paxlovid from China has exploded from just a few thousand to hundreds of thousands.
Merck and Chinese firms also sell Covid drugs to the local market.
Focus on treatment
As mandatory Covid testing resulted in early December, official numbers for the local outbreak have plummeted.
When asked about Covid deaths, Wang said that calculating the surplus deaths was the most effective strategy to go, corresponding to comparing data to December 2021.
It is not clear how soon these numbers can be available. China said only a handful of deaths meet the factors for a link to Covid-19. Anecdotes indicate that the general number of deaths within the country has increased since December.
“Straight away, I do not think it’s needed to take a look at each case. Treating patients must be a priority,” said Liang Wannian, executive vice dean of the Vanke School of Public Health at Tsinghua University. That is based on CNBC’s translation of his remarks in Mandarin on Wednesday.
Liang said the country would watch for brand spanking new Covid variants and report them in a timely manner. He didn’t go into details of the procedures that may do that.
A change within the Covid-related hospitalization or death rate could be the earliest sign of a recent variant, Dr Chris Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, said in late December. He said the likelihood of a recent Covid variant emerging in China is low.
The World Health Organization said this week that China is providing more information on the Covid-19 outbreak, however the country continues to be significantly underreporting deaths, based on Reuters.
On Wednesday, Liang said that especially in rural areas, essentially the most difficult phase of the Covid wave in China has passed.
Nevertheless, he said that based on the most recent Covid policy in China, local authorities within the face of a big epidemic can still move classes online and restrict large gatherings.