(Beijing) Crematoriums across China are struggling as an unprecedented wave of COVID-19 hits the elderly, three years after the first cases in Wuhan.
Since 2020, China has been imposing strict health restrictions, in the name of a so-called “zero COVID-19” policy which has made it possible to protect those most at risk, generally poorly vaccinated.
Generalized and almost compulsory screening tests, monitoring of movements and confinements have punctuated the daily life of the Chinese.
The government unexpectedly ended most of these measures in early December against a backdrop of growing exasperation among the population and a considerable impact on the economy.
The number of cases has since exploded. The extent of the epidemic is “impossible” to determine, by the admission of the authorities, screening tests are no longer mandatory and the data fragmentary.
Experts fear that China is ill-prepared for the wave of infections linked to this reopening, while millions of elderly and vulnerable people are not or little vaccinated.
Hospitals are overwhelmed, while pharmacies are running out of flu drugs as the country learns to live with the virus.
In Chongqing (southwest), a municipality-province with more than 30 million inhabitants, a crematorium has no more room to keep the bodies.
Their number in recent days is “much greater than before,” said an employee who did not wish to give his name to AFP for security reasons.
“We are all very busy, there is no more room for the bodies in the cold rooms”, specified the interlocutor who was not able to say whether or not the deaths are linked to COVID- 19.
Controversial figures
A similar situation prevails at the other end of the country.
“Of course we’re busy, what place isn’t right now?” “, pretends to wonder 1300 km away a crematorium in Baoding, near Beijing.
The Chinese capital and its 22 million inhabitants are particularly affected by COVID-19, which has spread at lightning speed in recent days.
Authorities reported five more deaths in the city on Tuesday, following two the day before. Figures that are largely underestimated according to experts.
Beijing municipal health officials on Tuesday defended a “scientific” method of counting.
“Older people have other underlying illnesses,” one of the officials, Wang Guiqiang, told reporters.
“Only a small number of them die directly from respiratory failure caused by COVID-19,” Beijing’s criteria for determining a COVID-19-related death.
AFP saw more than a dozen vehicles outside Beijing’s Dongjiao crematorium on Tuesday waiting to enter, mostly hearses or funeral cars sporting dark-colored ribbons and bouquets of flowers.
“Really overwhelmed”
A driver in the queue told AFP that he had already been waiting for several hours.
The link with COVID-19 could not be formally established. The establishment for its part declined to comment on the cause of death.
In Canton (south), a crematorium reported an “extremely worrying” situation.
“We cremate more than 40 bodies a day compared to a dozen before. We are three to four times busier than in previous years, ”testified an employee on condition of anonymity.
“All of Canton is like that,” he added, adding, however, that it was “difficult to say” if COVID-19 was the main cause of death.
In Shenyang (northeast), in the province of Liaoning bordering North Korea, the deceased can remain unburied for five days, because the crematoriums are “really overwhelmed”, according to an employee on site.
“I’ve never had a year like this,” he lamented.