Chinese intensive care units are filling up with patients amid a rise in Covid cases across the country, the World Health Organisation has said.
Although the Chinese government has sought to relax Covid measures following a public backlash, WHO emergencies chief Dr Michael Ryan, said that while the data states a low case rate, emergency care units are in fact taking in more patients.
He said: “In China, what’s been reported is relatively low numbers of cases in ICUs, but anecdotally ICUs are filling up.
"We’ve been saying this for weeks that this highly infectious virus was always going to be very hard to stop completely, with just public health and social measures."
WHO chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said “we are very concerned over the evolving situation in China” as a result of the wave of new infections in the country.
Figures showed that there no deaths were reported on Wednesday, but China has repeatedly been accused of downplaying its infections and deaths throughout the pandemic.
The Chinese government reported that only five people had died from Covid on Tuesday and a further two on Monday.
Experts have linked the outbreaks to low vaccine uptake in the over-60s and the efficacy of the Chinese-made jabs .
While not questioning the data, Dr Ryan did admit that more could be done in combination with the WHO to collect critical information on hospitalisations and deaths.
“I wouldn’t like to say that China is actively not telling us what’s going on. I think they’re behind the curve,” he said.
On Wednesday, dozens of hearses queued outside a Beijing crematorium despite the low mortality rate.
A wave of cases broke also out at Apple’s largest iPhone factory in Zhengzhou which caused the area surrounding the factory to be locked down.
In Shanghai, schools were moved to online classes and in Guangzhou, many pre-school children were told not to prepare for a return.
On Wednesday, Germany announced it would send its first batch of the BioNTech Covid vaccines to China in order to help contain the rise in cases.
