China is overwhelmed, yet an even bigger covid wave may be coming

Outside the People’s Hospital of Dezhou, a small city in the coastal province of Shandong, an old woman on a stretcher, breathing quickly with her eyes closed, is unloaded from an ambulance. A few minutes later she is put back into it. Her family members start calling other hospitals. There is no room at this one.

In the lobby, another family refuses to give up. “There are no beds at the moment, but let’s wait a bit,” says Mr Teng, who prefers that only his surname be used. He is trying to secure space for his father-in-law, who fell sick in late December and now has dangerously low levels of blood oxygen. The patient is sitting in a wheelchair, breathing through a mask attached to his own portable oxygen-concentrator, which is plugged into a wall socket.