Doctor Howard Bernstein of Beijing noted that in his more than three decades of emergency medicine, he has never encountered anything like this.
He added that patients are coming into his hospital in ever-increasing numbers; practically all of them are elderly and many are really ill with symptoms of COVID and pneumonia.
Bernstein's statement is consistent with similar evidence from medical professionals across China who are struggling to cope after China abruptly changed its previously tight COVID standards this month, which was followed by an outbreak of diseases that spread across the country.
Since the epidemic started in the country's capital city of Wuhan three years ago, this outbreak is by far the largest to have occurred there. In this month's high demand, Beijing's government hospitals and crematoriums have also struggled.
At the conclusion of a "stressful" shift at the privately run Beijing United Family Institution in the east of the capital, Bernstein told Reuters that "the hospital is completely overburdened from top to bottom."
He declared that the intensive care unit (ICU), emergency room, fever clinic, and other wards were all filled.
Many of them were given hospital admissions. People keep going to the ER since there is no flow and they won't get better in a day or two, but they can't get upstairs to the hospital rooms because of the stairs "explained he. They have been kept in the ER for days.
Bernstein seen hundreds of COVID patients every day in the past month, up from none.
The biggest difficulty is that, in all honesty, I believe we were simply unprepared for this "said he.
The chief medical officer at the exclusive Raffles Hospital in Beijing, Sonia Jutard-Bourreau, 48, said that patient volumes are five to six times more than usual and that patients' average ages have risen by nearly 40 years to over 70 in just the past week.
She added, "It's always the same profile." That is, the majority of the patients are unvaccinated.
She claimed that local hospitals are "overwhelmed" and that patients and their family members travel to Raffles to purchase Paxlovid, a COVID medication made by Pfizer, which is in short supply in numerous locations, including Raffles.
Jutard-Bourreau explained that there are specific requirements for when her team can prescribe it, saying, "They want the drug as a replacement of the vaccine, but the medicine does not replace the vaccine."
Jutard-Bourreau, who like Bernstein has spent about ten years working in China, is concerned that the worst of this wave has not yet reached Beijing.
Elsewhere in China, medical staff told Reuters that resources are already stretched to the breaking point in some cases, as COVID and sickness levels amongst staff have been particularly high.
Additionally, doctors are concerned about a recent virus mutation that could lead to the creation of a new, deadlier variety as cases continue to rise in China. Scientists worry that it might be comparable to the current omicron variations present there. It might involve several different strains. Or, as they claim, something completely else.
China, which has a large population but weak virus protection, provides a favourable environment for virus mutagenesis, according to specialists. Big waves of infection are frequently followed by the emergence of new variations, according to Ray.
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