Packed ICUs, crowded crematoriums: COVID roils Chinese towns
Bazhou (China): Yao Ruyan paced frantically outside the fever clinic of a county hospital in China's industrial Hebei province, 70 kilometres (43 miles) southwest of Beijing.
Her mother-in-law had COVID-19 and needed urgent medical care, but all hospitals nearby were full.
"They say there's no beds here," she barked into her phone.
As China grapples with its first-ever national COVID-19 wave, emergency wards in small cities and towns southwest of Beijing are overwhelmed.
Intensive care units are turning away ambulances, relatives of sick people are searching for open beds, and patients are slumped on benches in hospital corridors and lying on floors for a lack of beds.
Yao's elderly mother-in-law had fallen ill a week ago. They went first to a local hospital, where lung scans showed signs of pneumonia.
But the hospital couldn't handle COVID-19 cases, Yao was told. She was told to go to hospitals in adjacent counties.
As Yao and her husband drove from hospital to hospital, they found all the wards were full. Zhuozhou Hospital, an hour's drive from Yao's hometown, was the latest disappointment.
"I'm furious," Yao said, tearing up, as she clutched the lung scans from the local hospital. "I don't have much hope. We've been out for a long time and I'm terrified because she's having difficulty breathing."
Over two days, AP journalists visited five hospitals and two crematoriums in towns and small cities in Baoding and Langfang prefectures, in central Hebei province.
The area was the epicentre of one of China's first outbreaks after the state loosened COVID-19 controls in November and December. For weeks, the region went quiet, as people fell ill and stayed home. Many have now recovered. Today, markets are bustling, diners pack restaurants and cars are honking in snarling traffic, even as the virus is spreading in other parts of China. In recent days, headlines in state media said the area is " starting to resume normal life."
But life in central Hebei's emergency wards and crematoriums is anything but normal.
Even as the young go back to work and lines at fever clinics shrink, many of Hebei's
elderly are falling into critical condition. It could be a harbinger of what's to come for the rest of China.
