COVID-19 patients in China are now arriving at hospitals in “ever-increasing numbers” as the country suffers its “biggest outbreak since the pandemic began in the central city of Wuhan three years ago,” Reuters reports.
Medical staff across China are “scrambling to cope” following a “nationwide wave of infections,” while Beijing government hospitals and crematoriums also “have been struggling this month amid heavy demand.”
“The hospital is just overwhelmed from top to bottom,” Beijing-based doctor Howard Bernstein told Reuters at the end of a “stressful” shift at the privately owned United Family Hospital in the east of the capital. “The ICU is full,” as are the emergency department, the fever clinic, and other wards, he said. “The biggest challenge, honestly, is I think we were just unprepared for this.”
China’s “biggest outbreak” arrives after 90.2% of the country’s population have been “fully” vaccinated and 92.4% have received “at least 1 dose,” according to Google data.
Chinese citizens have received the most single-dose coronavirus vaccines in the world, according to Johns Hopkins University & Medicine.
