Chinese hospital official warns of Covid outbreak among staff

• According to medical staff and many posts on social media, a rising number of Chinese are showing moderate COVID-19 symptoms and going to hospitals and clinics
• This is leading to many Chinese doctors and nurses catching the virus
• China’s sudden loosening of strict COVID-19 restrictions could cause a surge in severe cases in coming months, and hospitals in major cities are already feeling the strain, according to experts

BEIJING, China: According to medical staff and many posts on social media, a rising number of Chinese are showing moderate COVID-19 symptoms and going to hospitals and clinics, leading to many Chinese doctors and nurses catching the virus.

China’s sudden loosening of strict COVID-19 restrictions could cause a surge in severe cases in coming months, and hospitals in major cities are already feeling the strain, according to experts.

People with mild symptoms have been advised to quarantine at home by health officials, who also noted that the majority of cases reported in the country are mild.

Ben Cowling, epidemiologist at Hong Kong University, said insufficient medical resources to cope with an overload of COVID-19 cases contributed to a surge in deaths in Hong Kong, warning that the same scenario could occur in China.

“One of the reasons we had such a high mortality rate in Hong Kong is because we simply did not have enough hospital resources to cope in the surge. And unfortunately, that is what is going to happen in about one to two months time in the mainland,” Cowling said, as quoted by Reuters.

Meanwhile, state-run media outlet Xinhua reported that 50 Covid patients are currently in a serious or critical condition in hospitals in the capital, Beijing.

In a worrying sign that a wave of infections is building with the sudden loosening of restrictions, long queues have formed outside COVID-19 treatment centers and hospitals, including at Beijing Hospital.

Wan Ling, head nurse at a hospital in Huashan in China’s Anhui province, wrote on Weibo that many of her infected colleagues were relatively serious and were suffering from high fevers.