'ICU is full': China's Covid horror continues as morgues 'overflow'

Covid surge in China: The Covid-19 horror in China doesn't seem to end, days after the country ended its zero Covid policy, which included mass testings, targeted lockdowns and travel restrictions.

Back in China, hospitals in Hebei are turning away patients and the infected are sleeping on benches in hospital corridors or lying on floors, India Today reported.

As patients continue to arrive in increasing numbers, Beijing-based doctor Howard Bernstein said, "he has never seen anything like this."  

"The hospital is just overwhelmed from top to bottom," Bernstein told Reuters. "The ICU is full," as are the emergency department, the fever clinic and other wards, he said.

China's Zhejiang, a big industrial province near Shanghai, is reportedly battling around a million new daily Covid-19 infections. The number is expected to double in the days ahead.

There are also long queues being witnessed outside funeral homes. Several videos have surfaced on social media platforms with dreadful scenes of China's cremation grounds where there is a long line for last rites.

Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist and health economist, has tweeted a video stating that the "worsening Covid-19" is yet to come.

"It shouldn’t take stark videos of overflowing morgues and body bags to convince you of the crisis unfolding in China. RUNNING OUT OF OXYGEN… at even top-level hospitals in the capitol city… it’s becoming that bad," he tweeted on Sunday.

The numbers are not expected to slow down, warn experts as approximately 100 million Covid cases and 1 million deaths are expected to occur in China. Dr Neeraj Kumar Gupta, HOD of Pulmonary Medicine at Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital told ANI, "Based on mathematical calculations, we expect close to 100 million Covid cases in China, five million admissions and one million deaths, which is a huge number." 

He added that China is at the same stage as India was earlier but India is now well-experienced in fighting the virus.

Despite this, mask-wearing Beijing and Shanghai commuters crowded subway trains on Monday as residents commuted to work.

"I am prepared to live with the pandemic," 25-year-old Shanghai resident Lin Zixin told Reuters.

It must also be noted that China has narrowed its definition for classifying deaths as Covid-related. It only counts deaths from pneumonia or respiratory failure in its official Covid-19 death toll.

(With inputs from agencies)

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