China COVID cases rise as hardline policies ease

Despite its zero-tolerance policy toward Coronavirus,  China COVID cases rise again in 2022.

Over 22,000 patients – 16 times the number a week ago – visited hospitals across Beijing in the previous day after China loosened its restrictions.

In a press conference on Monday, city health commission spokesperson Li Ang said the rapid spread of the disease is still a problem in the city.

During the past year, there was an increase in fever clinic visits, flu-like cases, and emergency calls of all kinds.

A total of 8,626 domestic infections were reported in China on Monday. But testing is no longer mandatory for most of the population, which raises the expectation that the number is far higher.

Despite the country’s zero-Covid policy, many with symptoms are self-medicating at home as it navigates its way out of the zero-Covid policy.

The majority of pharmacies in Beijing have run out of cold and fever medicines, and people are stockpiling in preparation for the upcoming virus surge which threatens the lives of millions of elderly without vaccinations.

Hospitals in Hebei province and Sichuan province were swamped with infections and residents could not purchase medicine because of a surge of infections in smaller cities like Baoding.

In spite of AFP’s best efforts, the claims were not immediately verified by the agency.

“I think it’s really serious that we don’t have enough medicine and it’s poorly manage,”. Wrote someone on a Twitter-like platform called Weibo.

Rural China’s interior is particularly vulnerable to health crises such as Covid due to a lack of adequate medical infrastructure and primary care triage.

A new era begins with tracking 

Taking a major step towards easing years-old restrictions, China announced Monday that it was retiring an app that tracked travel to disease-ridden regions.

Keeping track of millions of people’s movements through their phone signals was the state-run “Communications Itinerary Card” within zero-Covid.

The app among a number of tracking applications being use in everyday life since the pandemic began. For entering stores and offices, most people still use local “health codes” issued by their city or province.

Many social media users congratulated the government on retiring the software, noting the symbolic significance.

“I would like to thank you all for your support during this period, it signifies the end of an era and the beginning of a new one,” said one post on Weibo.

A number of people asked what would happen to the mountains of data collected and hoped it would be dispose of.

Political win – China COVID cases rise

Kendra Schaefer, a Trivium China researcher who believes that the return to normalcy was a great political win. Chose the word “great” because the change was “so monumental”.

Nevertheless, that normalcy has left the country unprepared to handle the surge of cases it faces, with millions of elderly patients not fully vaccinated and underfunded hospitals unable to handle a large number of patients.

Among the 10,000 people in China, Jiao Yahui, director of the Department of Medical Affairs at the National Health Commission, warned last week that one intensive care unit bed is available for every 10,000 people.

According to official data, the number of Covid cases has dropped sharply from an all-time high recorded last month, but top Chinese health expert Zhong Nanshan warned the media on Sunday that the Omicron variant of the disease seems to be spreading rapidly ”.

As a result of the easing of restrictions, domestic travel has also picked up. According to state broadcaster CCTV, flights from Beijing’s two main airports are expect to return to 70 percent of their 2019 levels by the end of next week.