Cities brace for surge in COVID infections

Special: Battle Against Novel Coronavirus

Cities nationwide are bracing for peaks of COVID-19 infections by adding critical-care beds and expanding the capacity of fever clinics ahead of the Chinese New Year travel rush in January.

The preparations came after central authorities cut many testing and isolation requirements in November in an attempt to coordinate economic growth with control of outbreaks of the highly contagious, yet less lethal, Omicron subvariants.

Health authorities in Jiangxi province have said infections will reach a climax in early January, adding that there could be other peaks as people travel late next month for Spring Festival celebrations. They warned the wave of infections would last three months and estimate about 80 percent of the province's 45 million residents will be infected.

Hainan province officials said on Friday that the number of cases was on a "rapid climb" on the tropical island of 10.2 million. Many students, migrant workers and tourists will travel during the New Year's Day and Spring Festival holidays, accelerating the virus' spread.

A health official in Qingdao, Shandong province, has estimated that up to 530,000 residents are being infected each day and the speed of the disease's spread is still increasing.

Hefei, capital of Anhui, said its peak of infections was reached on Sunday, earlier than the rest of the province, because of the greater population density and people's mobility in the metropolitan area. Authorities in Zhejiang said on Sunday that the daily caseload had topped 1 million.

The approaching surge in COVID-19 cases and potential rise in critically ill patients have prompted local authorities to ramp up expansion of intensive care units and fever clinics.

The State Council's Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism this month released two circulars asking top and second-tier hospitals, as well as hospitals designated for COVID-19 treatment, to add more ICU beds before the end of December, and build more fever clinics in towns and villages.

The circulars stipulated that critical-care beds at third-tier hospitals — the top ones in China's hospital rating system — account for no less than 4 percent of its total. An extra 4 percent should be on standby for treating critically ill patients. Fever clinics should be established at 90 percent of township and community hospitals by March.

Zhejiang province recently announced that its critical-care beds at designated hospitals outnumbered the national standard. However, it would keep upgrading non-ICU beds so the province can better deal with a potential surge in severe cases. Anhui officials said the province met the target set by the national authorities on Wednesday.

The race to build such facilities has led to tight supplies of breathing and electrocardiogram monitoring machines, according to Nanfang Metropolis Daily.

The Beijing municipal government recently said the number of the city's fever clinics had increased from 94 to almost 1,300, through methods such as bringing in prefabricated rooms and transforming sports centers into makeshift hospitals. Shanghai has 2,600 such clinics and has transferred doctors from less-strained medical departments to help out.

Meanwhile, the National Health Commission said on Sunday that it will stop publishing infection data and hand over the task to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Liang Wannian, a senior expert with the commission, said China is taking "small yet continuous steps" to optimize its COVID-19 strategy.