The report said hospitals were “urgently” borrowing staff from other facilities to retrain them. Henan province was aiming to more than double the number of intensive care units, and increase the number of ICU doctors and nurses almost 10-fold.
Meanwhile, Nanjing city has introduced purchase limits on ibuprofen and other drugs, as it and other regions scramble to increase supply of the over-the-counter medications. In Beijing, Reuters reported a designated Covid-19 crematorium, where it had seen a long line of hearses and workers in hazmat suits carrying the dead inside on the weekend, was heavily guarded on Tuesday. Reuters could not immediately establish if the dead being taken there were Covid fatalities.
Despite this, the government has pushed ahead with the reopening. China’s economy has been damaged by a property sector collapse and the zero-Covid induced disruptions to production and supply chains.