Mahindra makes appeal to help China as COVID-19 re-emerges

Indian business tycoon Anand Mahindra requested the Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech to help China which is struggling with increased cases of COVID-19 in that country.

Mahindra said that this might be a good opportunity to once again set an example of how “good” India is towards its neighbours.

In a tweet, he said, “Clearly their vaccines have not provided the necessary immunity. Can we demonstrate how to be good neighbours and Serum Institute of India & Bharat Biotech? We currently have sufficient capacity to supply.”

He was reacting to the post of a Twitter user who had shared a picture from a hospital that seemed overwhelmed with patients that the user claimed was ‘Chongqing Medical University Hospital’.

The tweet said that there are no more beds inside the Chongqing Medical University Hospital, and the elderly are starting to lie on the floor. “The machines that are on the chests are used to replace the human hand to press the heart,” the user tweeted.

The sudden Covid-19 spike in China is being attributed to its decision to end the lockdown following the anti-lockdown protests that had taken place across the country.

AFP reported that several hospitals in China are overflowing with patients with the elderly being the most hit this time. Even as people queue up to under-prepared hospitals that rely on makeshift Covid wards, China has officially logged only a “handful” of deaths.

Shanghai is one of the most affected mega cities as the virus is making its way virtually unchecked through its 25 million-strong population.

Hospitals are struggling to cope with the number of infected patients, pharmacies are turning customers away empty-handed, businesses are shutting because staff are off sick, most schools have closed and usage of public transport is plummeting.

Meanwhile, it was reported that doctors and nurses could be infecting patients since the hospitals are already under severe pressure. 

Due to shortages of staff, frontline medical workers are being told to come in even if they have the virus.

Chen Xi, a Chinese professor in the US specialising in health policy, has told the BBC that he has been speaking to hospital directors and other medical staff in China about the massive strains on the system right now.

"People who've been infected have been required to work in the hospitals which creates a transmission environment there," he said.

China's hospitals have hastily increased their fever ward capacity to meet a huge influx of patients, but these have been filling up quickly, in part because the message is still not getting through that it is all right to stay at home if you catch the virus.

Prof Chen says much more needs to be done to explain this to people.

"There is no culture of staying at home for minor symptoms," he said. "When people feel sick they all go to hospitals, which may easily crash the healthcare system."

In Beijing, though restaurants are allowed to open again, they have very few customers and the streets are quiet.

A reason restaurants are empty is that the city government still requires a negative PCR test result within 48 hours to dine inside. However, the majority of results are not coming through to health code phone apps.

This seems to be because the labs have been swamped with work now that Covid is spreading so rapidly.

A 34-year-old woman, who is isolating at home after catching Covid, told the BBC that the experience, so far, has been surprisingly smooth.

She said her symptoms have not been as bad as she had expected them to be and that she has everything she needs.

She also said she was much happier to have the option of recovering at home with her husband rather than in a crowded quarantine centre.

Doctors are taking to social media in an attempt to reassure people that it is fine for them to remain at home after they catch Covid.

Officials have also started to transform China's Covid isolation centres into temporary hospital facilities, to cope with an explosion of infections.

In just one day this week, 22,000 people in Beijing tried to get into a fever clinic.

The government says it is the virus which has changed, that newer strains are less dangerous and that this has meant the time was right to alter the response.

A group of overseas Chinese have set up a special chat on the Wechat app so that people living in other countries can share their experiences of having Covid with users in China.

For nearly three years, China focused on keeping the virus outside of its borders. But now COVID is spreading largely unchecked across the country, leaving hospitals filled and medical resources scarce. In Beijing, so many people are ill, there aren't enough ambulances.