Chinese authorities have begun emergency requisitioning of private hospitals, hotels, apartments, cars and even face masks as the country’s rising number of coronavirus patients threatens to overwhelm local government facilities. But the measures, particularly the requisitioning of hospitals, have left some people with other life-threatening diseases without critical care, creating what one relative of a cancer patient affected by the seizures described as a “humanitarian” disaster. China’s southern industrial hub of Guangzhou this week joined a host of other big-city governments such as Zhengzhou, Fuzhou and Xi’an in passing emergency legislation for requisitioning.
In Wuhan, the center of the outbreak, local authorities have seized offices, student dormitories and other hospitals to create more beds for coronavirus patients. “Wuhan’s health system has collapsed because of the epidemic. The government has basically ignored other diseases,” said city resident Liu Congfeng, whose mother-in-law was suffering from cancer but had lost her hospital bed to coronavirus patients.
The coronavirus has brought the world’s second-largest economy to a halt after authorities ordered a lockdown of Wuhan and factories and businesses across China began shutting down.
The head of the World Health Organization warned this week that the outbreak posed a “very grave threat for the rest of the world” as the number of confirmed infections in China reached 44,653 late on Tuesday, with 1,113 deaths. But in a sign the draconian quarantine measures might be working, the number of daily new cases outside Hubei province, of which Wuhan is the capital, fell for the eighth consecutive day on Wednesday.