Till a little while ago, China was the last haunt of the COVID-19 pandemic in the world, but now, within a few weeks, a dangerous wave of the virus infection is expected to hit China yet again. This week, Beijing has taken a huge step to live with COVID-19. The lockdown and quarantine under the unpopular and damaging zero-COVID policy has been discontinued. But with this sudden move amidst the protests, there are chances of heavy burdens falling on the health services. With the increase in travel during the New Year, the situation can get worse.
As per Feng Jijian, an advisor from China’s COVID Task Force, has said that 60% of the population, or more than 84 crore people can get infected. Similar to other countries, China is confronting the highly contagious Omicron variant of the virus, but this is less dangerous than the earlier variants. China had a time of 3 years to deal with this situation, but rather than focusing on vaccinations and preparing the people to live with the virus, it focused on imposing lockdowns.
As per Hong Kong University’s Virus Expert, Jin Dong-Yan, a tsunami of infection is bound to hit the country, and carrying out the zero COVID policy or not does not make a difference. The situation of infection in the country is unclear. As per the statistics released by the National Health Commission, there were 159 serious cases in the country on Friday, which is around 100 more than the last week. Jin added that many cases are not coming out. In the meanwhile, the government is preparing to deal with a major wave of infection.
Officers have decided to double up the number of intensive care beds in hospitals, and to increase the number of doctors and nurses. The temporary quarantine centres are now being turned into hospitals. The people have been advised not to buy medicines and other things in paranoia, so that medicines for those who actually need them can be saved.
