Roughly 200 bodies are arriving each day at crematorium in China, cremations conducted in the middle of the night
Beijing: China is experiencing a massive resurgencce in coronavirus cases. Hospitals are completely overwhelmed, reported Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist and health economist, a report in The Tribune, Chandigarh says.
He estimates that more than 60 per cent of China and 10 per cent of Earth’s population are likely to be infected over the next 90 days with deaths likely in the millions.
One of Beijing’s designated crematoria for Covid-19 patients has been flooded with dead bodies in recent days as the virus sweeps through the Chinese capital, a repercussion brought on by the country’s abrupt loosening of pandemic restrictions, reported the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
According to Feigl-Ding, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) goal is “let whoever needs to be infected, be infected, and let whoever needs to die, die. Early infections, early deaths, early peak, early resumption of production.”
China has reported no Covid deaths in Beijing since the authorities announced four deaths between November 19 and 23. The information office for China’s cabinet, the State Council, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment sent late on Friday.
“Since the Covid reopening, we’ve been overloaded with work,” said a woman who answered the phone at the crematorium on Friday, adding, “Right now, it’s 24 hours a day. We can’t keep up.”
The woman said Dongjiao Crematory, which is operated by Beijing municipality and which the National Health Commission has designated to handle Covid-positive cases, was receiving so many bodies that it was conducting cremations in the predawn hours and in the middle of the night. “There’s no other way,” she said.
She estimated that there were roughly 200 bodies arriving each day at the crematorium, from 30 or 40 bodies on a typical day. The increased workload has taxed the crematorium staff, many of whom have become infected with the fast-spreading virus in recent days, she said.
Moreover, the deaths in mainland China is being hugely underreported. Through a survey of hospitals, funeral parlors and related funeral industry chains in Beijing–there is a recent explosion in funeral services caused by the sharp increase in deaths.
According to the epidemiologist, the cremation in Beijing is nonstop. Morgues are overloaded. Refrigerated containers needed. 24/7 funerals. 2000 bodies backlogged for cremations. Sound familiar? It is spring 2020 all over again
People rushed to a pharmaceutical factory to buy ibuprofen because it is completely sold out elsewhere.
One said that, typically, all the day’s corpses would be cremated by midday. But the recent increase in the number of bodies has meant that cremations are now taking place long after nightfall.
In a series of abrupt moves this month, China dismantled much of the lockdown, testing and quarantine regimes that underpinned its ‘Zero Covid’ approach for the past three years.
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