Liu Xiaohong’s fever came first, then a constant, throbbing ache. Six days later it was still raging, and she cycled to the nearest hospital in Wuhan because the lockdown had stopped taxis. Doctors scanned her lungs that same day, Jan. 31, and concluded she probably had the new coronavirus. Twelve days after falling ill, she was still lying in a makeshift isolation ward, waiting for a test result so she could be admitted. “All I am hoping for now is a bed in a hospital,” she told NPR. “But there are no hospital beds.”
Kits too few, beds too few
Her case showed how the system worked in the first days of February. To get a bed you needed a diagnosis, and to get a diagnosis you needed a test kit, and there were not enough kits. The South China Morning Post reported on Feb. 3 that Wuhan, a city of 11 million, had reported more than 5,000 confirmed cases, about a third of the mainland total, but that experts feared the real number was far higher. A case counted as confirmed only after a patient tested positive twice, and with kits scarce, many sick people were never counted. Its reporter Mimi Lau said earlier, in late January, that patients compared getting a kit to “winning lottery tickets”.
NPR talked to more than a dozen families with confirmed or suspected cases. They described days of queuing for screening with little more than a drip as treatment. Residents said that without an official diagnosis they could not get care at all, which left people with pneumonia or influenza untreated. Suspected cases went to isolation wards in requisitioned hotels or clinics. Even people who tested positive could wait days more for a bed. Pan Yifei, whose grandmother died of a pneumonia-like illness on Jan. 25 before anyone could confirm the cause, said officials “tell us they do not know who we should contact for help”. Of the isolation wards, she said: “they are places where you send people to die by themselves.”
Doctors without gear
The strain on staff showed early. Back on Jan. 24, a Wuhan doctor told the BBC that “the hospitals have been flooding with patients, there are thousands, I haven’t seen so many before.” Another doctor told the Post: “even now we don’t have enough protective gear, test kits, and other supplies.” At that point 15 infections among medical workers had been reported, but a source said “definitely more than 15” were sick. By early February, NPR said, some doctors and nurses in Hubei province were wearing rain jackets or sewing their own face masks. Donated gowns and masks had to pass through five state-authorized organizations, including the provincial Red Cross chapter, which slowed delivery. Hubei’s government said it had punished three senior Hubei Red Cross staff and fired the group’s vice president.
Authorities had put Wuhan under quarantine on Jan. 23 with only hours of notice, and halted public transport. Dr. Gauden Galea, the World Health Organization’s representative in China, said the quarantine had probably lowered the peak of the epidemic. But it also locked thousands of sick people into a city with few beds, and made it harder to deliver supplies. Wuhan was close to finishing two new temporary treatment centers able to hold 2,600 patients, though like most municipal hospitals they would take only those who tested positive.
Sources
- Coronavirus tally in epicentre Wuhan may be 'just the tip of the iceberg' (South China Morning Post)
- In Quarantined Wuhan, Hospital Beds For Coronavirus Patients Are Scarce (NPR)
- As the Wuhan virus spreads, doctors in the city say they face a 'flooding' of patients and not enough protective gear (Business Insider)
