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Mostly older men and women wearing masks rested on cots in hallways, while others slept upright in crowded waiting rooms with numbered chairs. Many received fluids intravenously, while others were given oxygen. The sound of people coughing — and of new patients arriving on gurneys — was steady.
At the Chuiyangliu hospital in the east of Beijing on Thursday, signs of the COVID-19 outbreak stretching public health facilities in the world’s most populous nation were on full display.
Beds ran out by midmorning at the packed hospital, even as ambulances brought more people in. Hard-pressed nurses and doctors rushed to take information and triage the most urgent cases.
The crush of people seeking hospital care follows China’s abandonment of its most severe pandemic restrictions last month after nearly three years of lockdowns, travels bans and school closures that weighed heavily on the economy and prompted unusual street protests in a country that quashes political dissent.
The outbreak appears to have spread the fastest in densely populated cities first. Now, authorities are concerned as it reaches smaller towns and rural areas with weaker health care systems. Several local governments began asking people Thursday not to make the trip home for the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday, signaling lingering worry around opening up.
