• Beijing’s community health centers will soon receive Pfizer’s Paxlovid.
• Infections have swamped hospitals and reduced supplies.
• Beijing’s ER doctor worked despite a fever.

Beijing will soon start supplying Pfizer’s Covid-19 medication Paxlovid to the city’s community health centers, according to official media on Monday.

The report is released as the city struggles to cope with an unprecedented wave of infections that has put a tremendous burden on its hospitals and depleted its supply of medications.

Following training, community doctors would provide the medication to Covid-19 patients and provide instructions on how to use it, according to a story published on Monday by the government-run China News Service.

“We have received the notice from officials, but it is not clear when the drugs will arrive,” it cited a worker at a local community health center in Beijing’s Xicheng district as saying.

The sole foreign medication for the treatment of Covid that has received nationwide approval from China’s regulator is Paxlovid, however getting access to it is quite difficult. The antiviral medication was offered via a Chinese healthcare portal earlier this month, and it quickly sold out.

Azvudine, an oral medication created by Genuine Biotech in China, has also received approval.

The sudden shift in policy has caused panicky purchases of fever and cold medications, which has resulted in significant shortages at pharmacies and on internet marketplaces. In the nation’s capital Beijing and other parts of the country, there are typically long lineups outside fever clinics and hospital wards that are crowded with patients.

President Xi Jinping was quoted by CCTV on Monday as saying that the country required a more focused health plan to safeguard people’s lives as the Covid situation in China evolves.

“Xi Jinping emphasized that our country is currently facing a new Covid outbreak situation and new responsibilities, we need to conduct our patriotic health movement in a more targeted manner,” the CCTV report said.

It was one of Xi’s first public comments regarding the Covid situation in China following the government’s move to loosen its stringent regulations.

An emergency room doctor in Beijing told the state-run People’s Daily on Thursday that four doctors on his shift did not have time to eat or drink. “We have been seeing patients nonstop,” he said.

Another emergency room doctor told the newspaper he had been working despite having developed fever symptoms. “The number of patients is high, and with fewer medical staff, the pressure is multiplied,” said the doctor.

Hundreds of medical personnel from all around China have come to Beijing to aid medical facilities, a sign of the strain on the city’s medical system.

Beijing, the nation’s capital, is home to some of the top medical facilities. However, because of the unexpected zero-Covid u-turn, people and medical facilities are ill-equipped to handle an uptick in infections.

Since mass testing was pushed back and residents were permitted to employ antigen tests and isolate at home, China’s official Covid case figure has lost all relevance. In order to track the true number of illnesses, it has ceased reporting cases that are asymptomatic.

Nearly 250 million Chinese people, or about 18% of the population, are believed to have contracted Covid in the first 20 days of December, according to an internal estimate from the National Health Commission.

The virus might spread throughout China’s vast rural areas, where vaccination rates are lower and medical services are critically deficient, as city dwellers return to their hometowns for the Lunar New Year next month.

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