China says "confirmation has dropped"... The reason why emergency calls are exploding 6 times

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Since China eased its corona quarantine policy, the official number of confirmed cases has decreased significantly, but on the contrary, hospitals are crowded with corona patients.

There is also a prospect that the corona spread will peak around the Lunar New Year holiday next month.

Correspondent Jeong Young-tae reports from Beijing.

[Reporter]

Even in the middle of the night when the temperature dropped below freezing, there was an endless line.

Even inside the hospital, there is no place to set foot with patients.

There are cases in which patients cannot receive treatment even after standing in line for five or six hours at fever clinics installed in key hospitals throughout China.

[Liang / Chinese Beijing Citizen: It seems that all Beijing people will eventually be infected.

It's just a matter of time.]

The number of emergency calls in Beijing, which was normally 5,000 a day, exploded to over 30,000.

Six days ago, after declaring nationwide quarantine mitigation, the number of positive cases of corona self-diagnosis kits increased rapidly.

[Chinese fever clinic staff: Everyone, there are really not enough places for PCR test positive, self-diagnosis positive, or (intensive quarantine).]

Nevertheless, the official count of confirmed cases dropped from 40,000 to 8,000 in two weeks.

The PCR test for all residents was virtually abolished, and the positive self-diagnosis was not counted as confirmed, making the statistics meaningless.

Anxious residents flock to pharmacies, causing a shortage of household medicines.

[China Beijing Pharmacy Staff: The cold medicine is out.

(Are there any antipyretics?) Yes.

No.

Cold medicine arrives tomorrow.]

In Hong Kong, health authorities urged an end to stockpiling as residents ran out of cold medicine to send to relatives in mainland China.

Experts predict that the spread of corona in China will peak around the Lunar New Year holiday next month.

The key is to expand intensive care beds in a short period of time and increase the vaccination rate for the elderly, but if quarantine management fails and leads to the collapse of the medical system, it is expected to adversely affect economic recovery.