Covid Surge Rampages Through Shanghai Virtually Unchecked

At Tongren Hospital, one of Shanghai's biggest public hospitals, doctors in the ICU were using hallways to handle the overflow of seriously ill.

Months after Shanghai endured a brutal lockdown to stop the spread of Covid, the virus is starting to make its way virtually unchecked through the megacity's 25 million population.

Hospitals are struggling to cope with the numbers of infected patients, pharmacies are turning customers away empty-handed, businesses are closing because of staff sickness, most schools have closed and usage of public transport is plummeting. 

At Tongren Hospital, one of Shanghai's biggest public hospitals, doctors in the intensive care unit were using hallways to handle the overflow of seriously ill. Outside one so-called fever clinic, several dozen visibly sick people were forced to wait in the cold. Several pharmacies near the hospital were no longer allowing people to enter, saying they had run out of cold and fever medicine. 

Health-care employees described an increasingly dire situation of too many patients and staff falling sick. Cases have also increased after the city stopped requiring people to show negative PCR test results before entering a hospital.