A series of deaths at a hospital for elderly patients in Shanghai is underscoring the dangerous consequences of China’s stubborn pursuit of a zero-COVID approach amid an escalating outbreak in the city of 26 million people.
Shen Peiming, 71, was one such casualty. She died Sunday morning at the hospital, without any relatives by her side. A family member said they have been calling the hospital non-stop to find out the circumstances of Shen’s death, but have not gotten a clear answer. “How many times have there been lockdowns since 2020? They still don’t have experience managing this?” the family member said.
Most experts agree that China’s zero-COVID approach was highly successful in keeping deaths to a minimum when there were limited drugs or vaccines. But now that shots are widely available in China, and with the advent of the omicron variant, many say the government should abandon the policy and focus medical resources on the elderly and vulnerable instead.and carried out repeated mass testing to tackle an outbreak driven by the highly contagious omicron BA.2 variant.
The citywide lockdown has disrupted daily life and the economy. Many residents, trapped in their apartment buildings, arethrough apps and place bulk orders with neighbors. Some in quarantine have posted videos showing chaotic scenes of people rushing to get food and a lack of clean toilets. Others have posted pleas for relatives who need medicine urgently.
The 11 million residents of Wuhan were locked down for more than two months at the start of the pandemic in 2020., when some Chinese health experts publicly suggested softening pandemic control measures. “There is no time to waste,” Chinese Vice Premier Sun Chunlan said on a visit to the city last weekend, according to
A college professor who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was afraid of retribution, said his family wasn’t notified for more than a day after his 82-year-old father died on March 31. His last contact was on March 28 with a nursing assistant who called to warn there were positive cases and they could no longer take care of his father.
The hospital hired temporary nursing assistants, but many did not have healthcare experience, one nursing assistant said.
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