hong kongshanghai at the public hospital in shanghai where nora a 30yearold doctor works tension has spiraled since china relaxed its stringent zerocovid policy on december 7patients quarrel with doctors to access drugs that are in short supply like cough medicines and pain killers medics are overloaded infected staff continue to work because of a scarcity of personnelthe policy of controlling covid was relaxed very suddenly said nora who would not give her full name because of the issues sensitivity the hospitals shouldve been notified in advance to make adequate preparationsafter years of enforcing harsh measures to stamp out the coronavirus president xi jinpings abrupt abandonment of zerocovid in the face of protests and a widening outbreak has left china scrambling to avert a collapse of its public health systemshortages of drugs and testing kits and logistical disruptions are upending daily life four hospital workers told reuters that insufficient planning for the end of zerocovid had left them to manage a chaotic reopeningi think china thought that its policy was successful and that a gradual transition to the endemic phase was feasible but obviously it was not said kenji shibuya a former senior adviser to the world health organisationmore than a dozen global health experts epidemiologists residents and political analysts interviewed by reuters identified the failure to vaccinate the elderly and communicate an exit strategy to the public as well as excessive focus on eliminating the virus as causes of the strain on chinas medical infrastructurethe country spent big on quarantine and testing facilities over the past three years rather than bolstering hospitals and clinics and training medical staff these people saidthere is no transition time for the medical system to prepare for this said zuofeng zhang professor of epidemiology at the university of california los angeles if they could spend a small portion of resources used in covid19 testing and lockdown china would be better off in this policy changechinas national health commission did not respond to requests for comment on the resilience of the health system and supply of medical staff whether there were contingency plans to cope with soaring hospital admissions and whether strict coronavirus measures had impeded improvements to medical capacitystate media has defended beijings approach while recasting its messaging to emphasize the omicron variants milder nature in a review of chinas covid19 responses the official xinhua news agency said on dec 9 that xi had done right by taking resolute actions to curb the virus spreadingofficial dataas the outbreak grows official data on severe cases and mortality rates are unlikely to reflect the situation experts including mike ryan whos emergencies director have said in beijing funeral homes and crematoriums are struggling to meet demandthe national health commission has reported only a handful of covidrelated deaths since the reopening taking chinas official pandemic total to 5241 deaths very low by global standardsmeanwhile a drive to vaccinate the elderly that began three weeks ago has yet to bear fruit chinas overall vaccination rate is above 90 but