BEIJING – Dozens of people were wrapped in parkas and hats against the freezing temperatures outside a funeral home in east Beijing on Friday night as workers in full hazmat suits rolled out one coffin after another.
As an employee called out the names of the dead with a clipboard, a relative rolled over to the coffin to examine the body. One of the relatives told The Associated Press that their loved one had contracted COVID-19.
Deaths related to the coronavirus are emerging in Beijing after China reported no deaths for weeks, despite the country seeing a spate of cases.
That surge comes as the government dramatically eased some of the world’s toughest COVID-19 containment measures last week. The government announced this on Wednesday would stop reporting asymptomatic COVID-19 cases as it has become impossible to track them as mass testing is no longer required.
This halt in reporting made it unclear how quickly the virus was spreading. Social media posts, store closures, and other anecdotal evidence point to large numbers of infections.
It is also unclear how many people die from the virus. An AP reporter who visited the Dongjiao funeral home was told by relatives that at least two people cremated there had died after testing positive.
According to a relative of one of the dead, health officials had hired Dongjiao and another funeral home to cremate those who died after testing positive. The woman said her elderly relative fell ill in early December, tested positive and died in an emergency room on Friday morning.
She said there are many people in the emergency room who have tested positive for COVID-19, adding that there are not enough nurses to care for them. The woman did not want to be identified for fear of retribution.
For about an hour, an AP reporter saw about a dozen bodies being wheeled out of the Dongjiao funeral home.
About half a dozen people inside described how another victim had trouble breathing that morning before dying, and the death certificate listed “pneumonia” as the cause of death, even after testing positive for COVID-19, one of those people said . Those interviewed did not want to be identified for fear of retribution.
Three employees at shops in the complex where the funeral home is located said the number of people going there had increased significantly in recent days. By one estimate, around 150 bodies were cremated daily, compared to the usual few dozen a day.
One staffer attributed this to the coronavirus, although another said there are usually more deaths as winter sets in. The employees did not want to be identified for fear of retribution.
China has not reported any deaths from COVID-19 since Dec 4.
China’s official death toll remains low at just 5,235 deaths – compared to the United States’ 1.1 million. However, public health experts warn that such statistics cannot be directly compared.
Chinese health authorities only count those who died directly from COVID-19, excluding those whose basic conditions were worsened by the virus. In many other countries, guidelines state that any death in which the coronavirus is a factor or contributory factor is counted as a COVID-19-related death.
Experts say that this is the longstanding practice in China, but Questions were sometimes raised about whether officials tried to minimize the numbers.
Also on Friday, China’s cabinet ordered rural areas to prepare for the return of migrant workers this holiday season in hopes of preventing a big spike in COVID-19 cases in communities with limited medical resources.
Returnees must wear masks and avoid contact with the elderly, and village committees must monitor their movements, the guidelines say, but did not mention the possibility of isolation or quarantine.
There are fears of a surge in cases around the winter holidays in China, when tens of millions take trains, buses and planes for what may be their only trip home all year.
The upcoming Lunar New Year falls on January 22, but migrants generally start their journey home two weeks or more in advance. Some Chinese universities say they will Enabling students to finish the semester from home to spread the travel rush and reduce the potential for a larger outbreak.
Medical resources in smaller cities and rural communities, home to about 500 million of China’s 1.4 billion people, lag far behind those of big cities like Beijing and Shanghai. The rural medical infrastructure includes 17,000 county-level hospitals—many of which do not even have a single ICU bed—35,000 community health centers and 599,000 village clinics.
China has pushed to increase the number of fever clinics in rural areas to treat people with COVID-19 symptoms. About 19,400 such clinics, or consultation rooms, are currently operating in communities and townships across the country, state media reported on Friday.
By March 2023, about 90% of community-level health centers will have fever clinics, Nie Chunlei, chief of primary health at the National Health Commission, said on Thursday.
“This will effectively improve the ability of primary care health facilities to accommodate patients with fevers,” said Nie, who also urged stockpiling of medicines and antigen test kits, many of which have become scarce even in major cities.
The lifting of some travel regulations has prompted both relief and concern about the level of preparedness for COVID-19.
Health experts have said China will and will face a spike in infections over the next month or two trying to persuade reluctant seniors and others who are at risk of getting vaccinated.
The changes follow growing frustration with “zero-COVID” policies, which have been accused of stifling the economy and causing massive social stress. The easing began in November and accelerated after Beijing and several other cities saw it protests against the restrictions that grew into calls for the resignation of President Xi Jinping and the Communist Party – a level of public dissent not seen in decades.
It is unclear what prompted the government’s change of course. Experts cite economic pressure, public dissatisfaction and the difficulties in containing the highly infectious Omicron variant as factors.
China is not fully prepared to open up from a public health perspective, and the decision is mainly driven by economic and social factors, said Zeng Guang, a public health expert formerly with the China Center for Disease Control, at a conference organized by the China Center for Disease Control Conference state daily Global Times.
Under the relaxed rules, mandatory testing is no longer required and people with mild symptoms are allowed to recover at home instead of going to a quarantine center. Meanwhile, the semi-autonomous gaming enclave of Macau will lift its mandatory hotel quarantine for arrivals from Hong Kong, Taiwan and overseas starting Saturday, the government said.
However, travelers must spend five days in domestic isolation and undergo tests and are not allowed to enter mainland China until the 10th day after their arrival. Both Macao and Hong Kong have scrapped most anti-COVID-19 measures.
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Associated Press reporter Kanis Leung contributed from Hong Kong.
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