China races to expand hospital and ICU capacity as Covid cases continue to rise

China’s health sector braces to tackle an expected spike in cases as government unofficially ends zero-Covid policy

China is setting up more medical facilities to bolster its hospitals ahead of an expected sharp rise in its Covid-19 cases, as the Communist government eases back to normal life after three years of stringent restrictions and lockdowns.

Following weeks of rare mass protests, the Xi Jinping government on Wednesday dropped most of the draconian restrictions under its zero-Covid policy, which aimed to stop the coronavirus from spreading in the country.

While preventing Covid from becoming endemic remains the government’s stated goal, the latest moves suggest Beijing will tolerate more cases without quarantine or shutting down travel in order to get Asia’s largest economy moving again.

On Sunday, China reported 10,815 new cases, including 8,477 without symptoms.

Earlier this week, a cabinet meeting called for “full mobilisation” of hospitals including adding staff to ensure their “combat effectiveness”. According to state media, officials were told to keep track of the health of everyone in their area aged 65 and older.

China has 138,000 intensive care beds for its 1.4 billion citizens, the general director of the Bureau of Medical Administration of the National Health Commission, Jiao Yahui, said at a news conference. That is less than one for every 10,000 people.

There the availability of healthcare services between the cities and rural parts of the country varies hugely. Hospital beds are concentrated in Beijing and other major cities such as Shanghai. During the cabinet meeting, officials were reportedly told to ensure rural areas have “fair access” to treatment and drugs.

At least 22,000 hospital beds have been set aside for coronavirus patients in the western Shaanxi province and officials are ready to increase its intensive care capacity 20 per cent by converting other beds.

Cities with higher cases are pushing to upgrade hospitals for critically ill patients, an official of the provincial health commission was quoted by The Paper as saying.

“Each city is required to designate a hospital with strong comprehensive strength and high treatment level” for coronavirus cases, the official said.

Patients were seen queuing for up to six hours in several places to get into overburdened fever clinics, with some hospitals turning away patients with problems “deemed not serious” enough to receive treatment.

Defending the hospitals, Chen Erzhen, the vice president of Ruijin Hospital in Shanghai, said that “blindly going to the hospital” is depleting resources and might delay treatment for serious cases.

“We recommend trying to manage health at home,” he told The Paper. “Leave medical resources for people who really need treatment.”