Beijing death toll mounts as Covid sweeps through Chinese capital. By Ryan McMorrow at the Irish Times.
Evidence of a wave of Covid-19 deaths is beginning to emerge in Beijing despite official tallies showing no fatalities since an uncontrolled outbreak began sweeping through China’s capital this week.
Staff at one crematorium in Beijing said they cremated the bodies of at least 30 Covid victims on Wednesday and Financial Times reporters saw two body bags at a special hospital designated for coronavirus patients.
The virus is ripping through the Chinese capital just a week after authorities abandoned nationwide zero-Covid controls with little forewarning, leaving many Beijing residents struggling to find medication and access medical care. The surge is pushing the healthcare system to its limits, with medical workers in the capital asked to remain on the job even if they are infected.
China’s National Health Commission ceased providing total Covid case counts on Wednesday and has not reported any deaths in the country since December 4th, when the top medical body recorded two fatalities in Shandong and Sichuan provinces a day earlier.
Intrepid reporter David Archibald writes:
Just in from one who escaped:
The Chinese capital is in a deep health crisis. Hospitals are overwhelmed, with more than half of the staff sick with the virus. Retired doctors and nurses have been called back to work. Crematory furnaces are working 24/7, but bodies will wait for seven days to be fed into the fire ….
Xi Jinping’s draconian zero Covid measures and its abrupt abandonment could only take place in China, where the ruler is a power on itself and totally unaccountable. Xi Jinping is always right, like God.
The Chinese Government did their best to infect the rest of the world instead of containing it in Wuhan, which would have been the responsible and friendly thing to do. No, in early 2020 the Chicoms banned travel from Wuhan to the rest of China, while allowing Wuhan citizens to flee to the rest of the world. Now covid is finally coming back to bite them.
