China - Media: Beijing death toll mounts as Covid sweeps through Chinese capital - December 16, 2022

[sharon sanders]

Beijing death toll mounts as Covid sweeps through Chinese capital


Official count shows no fatalities in weeks but bodies have been seen at hospitals and crematoria

Evidence of a wave of Covid-19 deaths is beginning to emerge in Beijing despite official tallies showing no fatalities since an uncontrolled outbreak began sweeping through China’s capital this week.

Staff at one crematorium in Beijing said they cremated the bodies of at least 30 Covid victims on Wednesday and Financial Times reporters saw two body bags at a special hospital designated for coronavirus patients.

“We cremated 150 bodies [on Wednesday], many times more than a typical day last winter,” said an employee at the state-owned Beijing Dongjiao Funeral Home who asked not to be named. “Thirty or 40 had Covid.”

more....

https://www.ft.com/content/73eba78a-1bdb-4b32-be3e-b0329470b946

 

[sharon sanders]

Please see:

US Embassies in China partially close due to surge of COVID-19 - providing emergency service to US citizens only - December 16, 2022

 

[sharon sanders]

bump this

 

[sharon sanders]

Janis Mackey Frayer

@janisfrayer
·
3h
Beijing ‘reopening’ in the midst of a #COVID surge. The city is quiet… stores/restaurants/delivery services short-staffed as infections ‘double each day’, an epidemiologist tells me. #China bracing for biggest wave of the pandemic: 800+ million affected w/in 2-3 months.
@NBCNews

0:10
299 views
Watch again
0:00
117 views

 

[Shiloh]

16h ago
Covid Unleashed in Beijing Shows Rest of China What Comes Next
Bloomberg News, Bloomberg News

(Bloomberg) -- Beijing’s rapidly spreading Covid outbreak has turned the Chinese capital of 22 million people into a virtual ghost town as stores close and restaurants empty, underscoring the cost of President Xi Jinping’s sudden pivot away from Covid Zero.

Bucking expectations for a managed and gradual transition, Xi’s government is now allowing the virus to run rampant. While officials have abandoned efforts to track case numbers, anecdotal evidence suggests entire families and offices in Beijing have become infected in the span of just days — a potential harbinger of worse things to come in other parts of China with less-developed health care systems.

China’s ‘Let It Rip’ Covid Approach Is Confounding Experts

Beijing residents are hunkering down at home, either because they’re scared of catching the virus or because they already have it. While many grocery stores are still open to provide essentials, delivery services for food and other goods are facing delays with workers out sick. The retrenchment suggests China’s economy is likely to get worse before the benefits of exiting Covid Zero start to kick in next year.

“My whole office is positive and down,” said one Beijing resident, a project manager named Emile, who asked not to identified by his full name. “It seems everyone in the city has a fever or headache. Beijing looks like a ghost town.”

This was the week that Covid-19 finally hit the world’s most populous country. Since early in the pandemic, President Xi Jinping’s playbook of swift lockdowns, mass testing and strict quarantines had largely managed to shut out the virus even as restrictions were largely dropped around the globe. But following major economic disruption and the most widespread protests in decades, China abruptly dropped nearly most curbs on Dec. 7.

Bare Shelves

Congestion in the city, which has the highest car registrations in the nation, fell to about a third of its level in January 2021 as of Tuesday, according Baidu data. Roads in Chongqing in the southwest and Zhengzhou in central China are also among the most empty in major cities, hinting at the severity of outbreaks...