Pharmacies across Beijing had their physical and virtual shelves emptied amid frenzied stockpiling this week as residents in China's capital prepared for the anticipated surge in COVID infections.
China's official case numbers are falling after strict pandemic measures including near-daily testing were abruptly scrapped a week ago, but social media users are reporting more and more infections among their acquaintances.
On Monday, the ruling Communist Party's flagship newspaper, the People's Daily, urged members of the public to take personal responsibility for their health.
In scenes that were likely replicated in other major cities across the country, drugstores in Beijing began imposing quotas on the sale of medicines. Pharmacies and e-commerce businesses were struggling to restock fever medicine and rapid antigen tests, according to some of the most-visited websites.
Meanwhile, soaring demand for alternative therapies, like the traditional Chinese medicine Lianhua Qingwen, has led to price gouging online. Authorities have threatened a fine of up to 5 million Chinese yuan ($719,000) for market manipulation.
After three years of at times unyielding epidemic controls, China's decision to roll back virtually every aspect of its zero-COVID policy, even down to its ubiquitous location-tracking mobile app, is testing its already risk-averse public.
Li Ang, the No. 2 official at Beijing's municipal health authority, told reporters on Monday that 22,000 people had visited fever clinics the day before, up 16 times from a week earlier. Calls to emergency services peaked at 31,000 in a 24-hour period on December 9, he said.
"The current trend of the rapid spread of the epidemic in Beijing still exists," Li said. Those with symptoms have been asked to recover at home if possible.
In a social media post over the weekend, the Beijing Emergency Medical Center said emergency calls were overwhelming its capacity. It asked the public to refrain from requesting ambulances unless in critical cases.
Staff in the cities' main hospitals, where positive cases are also rising as part of the wave, were asked to continue working to treat other COVID patients, Radio Free Asia reported Monday.
China's leading health experts have for the first time openly discussed the likelihood of hundreds of millions of infections in the coming months, but have urged the public not to fear COVID, not to stockpile supplies and not to mix medications in a bid to prevent infection.
More than 90 percent of China's 1.4 billion people have been fully vaccinated, according to official data. Among those aged 60 and above, however, an estimated 37 million haven't received a booster shot, and 28 million remain unvaccinated.
The population's lack of natural or hybrid immunity due to the Chinese government's yearslong insistence on a zero-tolerance policy for outbreaks could risk more than a million lives, recent studies suggested.
Across the country, the response has been to stock up on medicines, food and other supplies as many choose to shelter to try to ride out China's first nationwide wave since the pandemic began.
Hong Kong's Sing Tao Daily said Monday that the city's pharmacies were selling large quantities of fever medication to Chinese customers who were sending them to friends and family back across the border. Anecdotal accounts from Japan suggested drugstores also were also running out of painkillers and others over-the-counter items due to an influx of Chinese buyers.
As China finally exits zero COVID, experts say the real test will be whether under-resourced health-care systems outside of so-called first-tier cities like the Chinese capital can cope with the increased patient load.
The country's public health specialists expect the first wave to peak in the next month, but the loosening of restrictions has already led to a surge in travel bookings for the Lunar New Year, which begins on the weekend of January 21, according to Chinese company trip.com.
On December 7, the day Beijing revised its epidemic control guidelines, searches for flight tickets for the holiday period reached pre-pandemic levels, the travel company said.
On Tuesday, China's National Health Commission said 7,679 new COVID infections were recorded in the previous 24 hours. But the figures have become increasingly meaningless given the dismantling of mass testing infrastructure and the scrapping of testing requirements for most public venues.
It has led to Beijing, a city of 21.5 million, reporting only 1,027 cases, and Shanghai, with a population of 25 million, reporting 129 cases.
A similar phenomenon was happening in recent COVID hotspots Guangzhou and Chongqing, cities of nearly 19 million and over 32 million, respectively. Local authorities there recorded just 725 and 1,578 new infections.
Do you have a tip on a world news story that Newsweek should be covering? Do you have a question about China's COVID-19 policies? Let us know via worldnews@newsweek.com.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
John Feng is Newsweek's contributing editor for Asia based in Taichung, Taiwan. His focus is on East Asian politics. He ... Read more
