The number of patients in the COVID-19 is shooting at beijingthe Chinese authorities reported on Monday, following the decision last week to relax the sanitary restrictions that until now had allowed the country to contain the Epidemic.
Until the beginning of December, only a few residents of beijing they knew someone close to them who had been infected, but this seems to be changing, according to posts on social networks and data collected by journalists from AFP.
In the capital, authorities said Monday that more than 22,000 patients had visited hospitals in beijing the day before, 16 times more than the Sunday before.
“The tendency of the rapid spread of the epidemic in beijing continues,” Li Ang, spokesman for the city’s health department, told reporters. “The number of consultations for fever and flu states has increased significantly, and the number of calls (…) to the emergency services has increased shot,” he added.
End of the ‘Zero COVID’ policy
China announced on Wednesday the end of its strict health policy of ‘Zero COVID’ending large-scale lockdowns and ceasing to systematically place positive people in highly criticized quarantine centers.
In addition, it is no longer mandatory to present a negative result in a test of the COVID-19 to travel to another province.
In this context, the Ministry of Health reported 8,626 new local cases of COVID-19 on Monday, a figure probably much lower than the real one because PCR tests are no longer mandatory and people do not usually report the results of self-tests. .
Since last week, it is difficult to find cold and fever medicines in pharmacies in Beijing and the same goes for the self-test of the COVID-19.
According to messages on social networks, there are also peaks of infection in smaller cities such as Baoding, in the province of Hebei (north), or Dazhou, in Sichuan (southwest). The AFP could not immediately verify this information. (AFP)
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