Several health experts from China argued today the need to take precautions against possible risks due to the reduction announced this Monday of the classification of the covid-19, from category A, the maximum level of danger, to category B, which contemplates a looser control.
The main fear staged by health officials is the increase in covid infections and consequently a growth in the number of patients seeking medical treatment to overcome it.
“This adjustment could lead to a rapid increase in the infection rate and a large growth in the number of COVID patients seeking medical treatment in a short period,” said Lei Zhenglong, deputy director of China’s disease prevention and control office. the National Health Commission (NHC, for its acronym in English) in statements collected by the official newspaper Global Times.
The expert assures that with this outbreak the infection of medical workers will reduce the available health personnel, which will produce “a relative scarcity of medical resources.”
One of the solutions proposed by Lei, in addition to the “use of masks and maintaining a positive mentality”, involves the need to “boost the supply of medicines” to guarantee the “great demand” by citizens through various channels.
The shortage of medicines, which caused prices to rise by up to 300% in some of these, has proven to be one of the main problems that the Asian country has faced in recent weeks, according to various media reports. .
To this end, the NHC urged healthcare institutions to have a proportion of medical resources of 15 to 20% of the population they serve and called for them to increase their reserves in densely populated areas.
But despite the clear opening orientation of the recent measures implemented by the country, such as the abolition of quarantines for international travelers as of January 8, the State Council (Executive) of China published this Tuesday new instructions on how to monitor the virus and conduct tests.
The Executive highlights that, contrary to what has been happening in recent months, in PCR tests several samples will no longer be mixed in a single tube and each individual will leave an individual.
Likewise, the authorities recommend infected employees in key sectors not to work, or if they cannot avoid it, reduce contact with other people.
“These changes are a dynamic adjustment in an orderly manner in accordance with law and science, not sloppiness. People and lives always come first. This has not changed,” said Liang Wannian, chief of COVID response at the NHC expert panel.
For his part, the head of China’s disease control emergency center, Li Qun, stated that the Asian giant “will closely follow the international and national situation” of the pandemic while monitoring and analyzing virus mutations to “optimize policies and measures for the prevention and control of epidemics”.
The Chinese government assured earlier this month that the “conditions” were in place for the country to adjust its measures in the face of a “new situation” in which the virus causes fewer deaths.
The relaxation of the restrictions has brought with it this month a wave of infections that some provinces estimate in millions a day due to the lack of data at the national level after the Commission stopped providing the daily report of infections over the weekend.
Hospitals in large cities such as Beijing have suffered difficulties in caring for all patients, according to testimonies collected on the country’s social networks.
Last week, the World Health Organization was “very concerned” about the evolution of the covid in China and demanded “more information”, to which the Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded that Beijing has shared its data “openly , punctual and transparent” since the start of the pandemic.