Ambulances come and go in front of Zhongshan Hospital, one of the largest in Shanghai, south of downtown. A woman, 74, with a graying ponytail, is seated on a small stool, and provided with a basin containing linen and a few belongings. “There are too many people inside, for an old woman like me, it’s difficult”, she justifies. She is out for some fresh air while her stepson queues inside with the sick father. “This morning, it was even worse, the queue exceeded all the way outside! », she describes. His daughter, 38, in a big black coat, has just arrived to lend a hand to the family who are desperately trying to get a bed for the father. “The government should come here to take stock of the situation. According to them, everything is fine, but look what happens ! », she gets carried away, face twisted in frustration. “They should at least distribute medicine to the most vulnerable, and tell people where to go. This morning we were first told to go to our neighborhood clinic, but they had no resources”, she continues.
Behind the emergency room door, hundreds of patients and their relatives fill the hall with a compact crowd. More than fifty people wait in a tight line in front of a first counter, regularly pushed by stretchers, wheelchairs, and doctors in a hurry. In the rooms, the corridors and even in front of the toilets, hundreds of patients installed on stretchers receive oxygen stored in large blue bottles.
A month after China abandoned zero Covid on December 7, 2022, hospitals across the country are overwhelmed with positive patients. The virus is spreading like wildfire among a population that is generally vaccinated but has no natural immunity, after three years of an extreme zero Covid policy. Less than three weeks after reopening, the National Health Commission estimated that 250 million people had been infected. A high-speed spread that imposes unprecedented pressure on the Chinese health system, already undersized.
“People have not been educated about this virus”
In a corridor of Huashan Hospital, another well-known establishment in central Shanghai, a woman, in her fifties, tries to reassure her mother-in-law, her eyes half-closed, curled up on a stretcher. The old lady, 78, has not eaten for three days. “We arrived yesterday, we were queuing, but she had no oxygen or infusion”, worries her daughter-in-law. Her husband, a small man in round glasses, roams the halls in search of doctors. They push each other to let a stretcher pass. The mother coughs. “There are so many sick people. We came from the suburbs so far, but no one takes care of us”laments the daughter-in-law.
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