China is racing to vaccinate its most vulnerable, with some analysts expecting the country's COVID-19 death toll to soar after it eased strict controls that had kept the pandemic at bay for three years.
Meanwhile, the spread of dubious COVID "remedies" is leading to a spike in everyday products like canned peaches.
While there are no official indications yet of the massive surge of critically ill patients some feared, social media posts, business closures and other anecdotal evidence suggest huge numbers of people are being infected. Long queues have been seen outside fever clinics.
In Beijing and elsewhere, there was a rush on cold medication and testing kits. Some hospital staff are staying home, while others are back to work after being infected.
The vaccine push comes as the World Health Organisation also raised concerns China's 1.4 billion population was not adequately vaccinated and the United States offered help in dealing with a surge in infections.
Beijing last Wednesday began dismantling its tough "zero-COVID" controls, dropping testing requirements and easing quarantine rules that had caused anxiety for tens of millions and battered the world's second largest economy.
The pivot away from President Xi Jinping's signature zero-COVID policy followed unprecedented widespread protests.
But, WHO emergencies director Mike Ryan said infections were exploding in China well before the government's decision to phase out its stringent regime.
"There's a narrative at the moment that China lifted the restrictions and all of a sudden the disease is out of control," Mr Ryan told a briefing in Geneva.
"The disease was spreading intensively because I believe the control measures in themselves were not stopping the disease."
For all its efforts to quell the virus since it erupted in the central city of Wuhan in late 2019, China may now pay a price for shielding a population that lacks "herd immunity" and has low vaccination rates among the elderly, analysts have said.
"Authorities have let cases in Beijing and other cities spread to the point where resuming restrictions, testing and tracing would be largely ineffective in bringing outbreaks under control," analysts at Eurasia Group said in a note on Thursday.
"Upward of 1 million people could die from COVID in the coming months."
Other experts have put the potential toll at more than 2 million.
China's official death toll remains low, with just 5,235 deaths — compared with 1.1 million in the United States — but questions have been raised at times about whether officials have sought to minimise the figures.
Vaccination drive prioritises elderly
China, which has said around 90 per cent of its population is vaccinated against COVID, has now decided to roll out the second booster shot for high-risk groups and elderly people over 60 years of age.
National Health Commission spokesperson Mi Feng said on Wednesday it was necessary to accelerate the promotion of vaccinations, according to comments reported by state media.
The latest official data shows China administered 1.43 million COVID shots on Tuesday, well above rates in November of around 100,000-200,000 doses a day. In total, it has administered 3.45 billion shots.
But one Shanghai care home said on Wednesday a number of its residents had not yet been vaccinated and considering their underlying medical condition, it has barred visitors and non-essential deliveries while stockpiling medicines, tests kits and protective gear.
"We are racking our brains on how to ensure the safety of your grandparents," the Yuepu Tianyi Nursing Home wrote in a letter posted on its official WeChat account page.
Beijing has been largely resistant to Western vaccines and treatments, having relied on locally-made shots.
Studies show Chinese vaccines are effective in preventing hospitalisation and death, but require at least three doses in order to be fully effective.
China says around 30 per cent of people 60 or older have yet to get three shots.
Part of the hesitancy derives from original government directives that discouraged those above 59 from getting vaccinated, but there are also longstanding concerns about the safety of Chinese vaccines.
Dubious COVID 'remedies' cause spike in sales
There are increasing signs of chaos during China's change of tack — including long queues outside fever clinics, runs on medicines and panic buying across the country.
One video posted online on Wednesday showed several people in thick winter clothes hooked up to intravenous drips as they sat on stools on the street outside a clinic in central Hubei province. Reuters verified the location of the video.
Meanwhile, as people take to the internet to share dubious “remedies”, sales of some everyday products have skyrocketed.
A run on canned yellow peaches, seen as particularly nutritious, prompted one of the largest producers to write on social media that they are not medicine and that there is plenty of supply.
While major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen have invested heavily in health care, second and third-tier cities and communities in the vast rural hinterland have far fewer resources to deal with a major outbreak.
For a variety of economic and cultural reasons, Chinese tend to be more reliant than citizens of other countries on hospitals, even for illnesses that are not severe.
The government has asked those with mild symptoms to recuperate at home, but if they don't, that could lead to strains, Yale professor of public health Xi Chen said.
“If people do not have such culture to stay at home, to keep those resources for sicker people, then that could easily crash the system," Mr Chen said.
Though the health care system in big cities appears to be holding up so far, Mr Chen cautions that it’s too soon to tell when cases will peak.
The January Lunar New Year — when millions of people travel to visit family — is expected to present another challenge, he said.
“I’m concerned it could be a super-spreader event,” Mr Chen said.
Winter is also a tough time to loosen restrictions, he said, as the virus circulates more easily.
The task of gauging China's preparedness is made all the harder by the lack of reliable statistics and projections.
The only numbers the National Health Commission is currently reporting are confirmed cases detected in public testing facilities where symptoms are displayed.
The government stopped announcing asymptomatic case totals earlier this week, saying an accurate count was impossible. The results of home tests are also not being captured.
ABC/wires
