As genetic sequencing and China dwindles testing, tsunami of COVID nineteen cases spurring some very deep concern. Let us go deeper. Joining us live now is bloom Brigs. John Lu, Beijing executive editor, Thank you so much, as always, John, Let's start in Shanghai. We remember the city and dirt, a brutal lockdown, other reports that things have gotten very bad there again. Now we're hearing intensive care units are using
hallways and the like. How rampant is this? Well, what we have is a sudden surgeon infections in Shanghai in other parts of China, and a medical system that wasn't wasn't given very much time to prepare. And so what we've seen is at hospitals emergency rooms, I see you beds being filled and the doctors they're having no choice but to put some patients into the hallway, for example, Others who are in less serious condition being asked to wait,
sometimes outside lots of ambulances. And so the situation at the moment is rather a strained so in generally in fiction infections in Shanghai and now we're looking like what we've seen in Beijing for the past week or two. Correct, Yes, that's right. Uh. Obviously, anecdotally we've seen a big uptick in the number of people who are sick, big drop off in things such as ridership of the local subway system. It's down about half of what it was in twenty nineteen,
so the year before the pandemic. Uh, we don't have the testing data anymore because there is no more testing being required of citizens, and so there is no real, uh good clear way to see what the trend is in terms of overall overall infections. Okay, so more and more and you tell me if this is fair. Um, it looks as if COVID COVID zero over the short term was very effective, but now the price is really being paid, and we don't know how big good price
is going to be. Well. China is obviously making an exit from of it zero and so reopening, reopening the economy, and I think, as we've seen in other countries around the world, when that happens, when the lockdowns lift there there is an uptick in infections, and that is what is happening in China at the moment. I think the real question is, uh, how will the high risk population be affected? So people who are are over the age
of eighty, for example, who have not had a vaccine. Uh, there is a real concern that there will be widespread death, and so there is a real we're keeping a very close eye on that situation. Obviously, we've talked about the hospitals. Uh, there's also been a lack of medicines for things like fever, and just because that exit happened so quickly, Uh, the supplies for that weren't prepared, the pharmacies weren't prepared, and so people are having a hard time getting their hands
on those drugs. Now, John, we're we're also running a story here and Bloomberg with the short of the anti virals like pact a lit bit that people are turning to the black market. Um, how is that working? What? What kind of black market? Well, the thing that we've observed most frequently is, uh, the purchase of generics from producers in South South Asian, so places like Bangladesh, like India, orders placed online, paid for and then shipped from those
places into China. Obviously, China has approved paxlovid as a treatment domestically, but as we were talking about earlier, because there's the exit happened so quickly, those supplies were not in place for people to get to and there's been a sudden rush to get to get the medicines by people who are either just getting infected or worried that they will be effected soon. So there's been a real straight on supplies, all right, John, Hey, thank you again.
Really appreciate your help on the perspective how that is that? John Lu, Beijing Executive Editor,