in China, the death of a woman for lack of care becomes the symbol of overwhelmed hospitals

While, despite its “zero Covid” strategy, China is facing its highest number of Covid-19 cases since the start of the pandemic, the situation is increasingly tense, particularly in Shanghai. More than 1,600 cases were recorded there on Thursday March 24, a very high total for a Chinese city. Hospitals are overwhelmed, and anger begins to mount. This discontent has crystallized in recent days around the death of a woman who could not be taken care of by the emergency services.

The victim is a 49-year-old nurse. Despite a severe asthma attack, several hospitals refuse to treat her, even at her own place of work. She eventually died shortly after 11 p.m. The information was initially censored, but given the magnitude of the reactions, one of the hospitals finally reacted, indicating that its emergency service was then suspended for disinfection.

The case has ignited Chinese social networks, the information has been shared nearly 24 million times on Weibo, the Chinese Twitter. A surfer points out in particular the fact that one may not die of Covid, but of all other kinds of illnesses.

The death of this woman illustrates the situation in Shanghai hospitals, overwhelmed, with nursing staff who can no longer cope, as evidenced by a nurse on a video relayed on social networks: “We’ve been testing for the past two weeks, non-stop, day and night. We’ve been working without sleep for 36 hours straight, we’ve gotten to a point where we’re nervously crumbling. What’s- what we can do ?”

Friday, March 25, the Weibo network is invaded by photos of candles to pay tribute to the deceased nurse.