People wait outside the fever treatment clinic at Tongren Hospital in Shanghai on December 23, 2022, throughout the local outbreak of Covid-19 infection.
Hector Retamal | afp | Getty Images
BEIJING — Critical care beds and resources in some Chinese provinces are approaching capability as Covid-19 infections surge, national health authorities said on Tuesday.
“Within the provinces that are currently experiencing high demand for intensive care, they are approaching the critical threshold of accessible ICU beds and resources,” Jiao Yahui, director of the medical affairs department of China’s National Health Commission, said during a press conference. That is what CNBC’s Mandarin translation shows.
Jiao said that in such regions, “it’s mandatory to extend the provision of ICU beds and resources or speed up rotation.”
Overall, Jiao claimed that the national ICU bed availability was sufficient at 12.8 per 100,000 people as of December 25.
Earlier this month, mainland China abruptly ended many Covid controls. Meanwhile, infections have skyrocketed, putting pressure on the country’s already overburdened healthcare system.
It’s unclear to what extent the Covid outbreaks have affected the country, with few official figures on recent infections and deaths. China’s National Health Commission on Sunday stopped releasing each day data after a break in mandatory testing for the virus.
Some local governments have revealed details of the situation within the region.
Zhejiang province – which borders Shanghai – said on Sunday that each day Covid infections within the region have surpassed 1 million and are more likely to double to a peak of two million per day across the Latest 12 months. The province has a population of roughly 65.4 million.
In line with an official report on Saturday within the capital Beijing – certainly one of the primary to experience a wave of Covid – the proportion of severe cases and elderly patients in fever clinics. The director of a local hospital was quoted as saying that the proportion of older people’s visits had risen from lower than 20% to almost 50%.
China’s health authorities spoke on Tuesday at a briefing on the country’s recent Covid measures, released late Monday. Policy changes included plans to lift quarantine for travelers arriving from January 8.
“We view the brand new guidance as a major step towards a full reopening, but warn of increased challenges for China’s medical system within the near future,” Goldman Sachs analysts wrote in a Tuesday note.
“The presented timetable for reopening China adds credibility to our Q4 below-consensus (+1.7% y/y) and above-consensus 2023 GDP growth forecast (+5.2% y/y) in Q4,” the analysts wrote. .