The crisis in China caused by the COVID-19 outbreak is getting worse by the day. Hospitals are getting overcrowded, ICUs are turning away ambulances while patients are being treated on benches and corridors in the country.
"They say there are no beds here," a Chinese resident named Yao Ruyan, who was looking to admit her mother-in-law, was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.
Ruyan also informed that her mother-in-law was not able to get treatment at a local hospital industrial Hebei province, 70 kilometers southwest of Beijing, and was told to go to a larger hospital in adjacent counties.
"I'm furious. I don't have much hope. We've been out for a long time and I'm terrified because she's having difficulty breathing," a tearful Ruyan said while holding her mother-in-law's lung scan reports.
Furnaces are burning overtime at the Zhuozhou crematorium as workers struggle to cope with a spike in deaths in the past week, according to one employee. A funeral shop worker estimated it is burning 20 to 30 bodies a day, up from three to four before COVID measures were loosened.
"There's been so many people dying," said Zhao Yongsheng, a worker at a funeral goods shop near a local hospital in Zhuozhou. "They work day and night, but they can't burn them all."
A crematorium in Gaobeidian is making people "wait for 10 days" due to the mass deaths in the area. "There's been a lot!" a worker said when asked about the number of COVID deaths.
Notably, China has reported only 7 deaths from the coronavirus since the zero-Covid policy was removed by the government. The total tally stands at just 5,241 as China only counts deaths from pneumonia or respiratory failure in its official COVID-19 death toll.
