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Locals queue for medical treatment at Beijing Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine on June 1, 2022.

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BEIJING — About half of the nearly 2,000 workers at the Beijing Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital have contracted Covid-19 during the latest wave, director Liu Qingquan said Wednesday.

Liu told reporters that all the workers recovered after taking traditional Chinese medicine. He said of the 1,000 employees infected, only one, who already had high blood pressure, developed pneumonia.

China has promoted the use of traditional Chinese medicine alongside Western treatment of Covid. Instead of pharmaceutical drugs, traditional Chinese medicine relies on medicinal herbs and natural methods to help the body heal itself.

The Omicron variant swept across China in December when authorities abruptly ended most Covid controls. Local businesses reported that the majority of their employees fell ill within a week before recovering. In the city of Beijing alone, tens of thousands of people rushed to fever clinics in a single day, local authorities said.

Because of the surge in patients, doctors and nurses were unable to return home for several days, Liu said. He said health workers sometimes have to work while they themselves are sick and taking medication.

Over the past two weeks, officials in the city of Beijing and other Chinese urban centers have said they have weathered the worst of the Covid outbreak.

Although the situation has eased, “from the hospital’s point of view, our pressure is still very strong,” Wang Guiqiang, director of the infectious diseases department at Beijing University First Hospital, said on Wednesday. This emerges from a CNBC translation of his remarks into Mandarin.

The hospital has converted additional wards into critical care areas and trained doctors to become intensive care unit nurses, Wang said.

Pfizer’s Covid-19 drug

Locals have also rushed to stock up on medicines in the wake of the recent Covid wave in China, leading to shortages and long lines outside pharmacies over the past month.

PfizerThe drug Paxlovid, used to treat Covid, remains in short supply domestically, Wang said. But he said the drug will soon be manufactured in China by a local company.

Pfizer has signed an agreement with a local partner to manufacture Paxlovid in China, CEO Albert Bourla said, according to transcripts Monday at the JPMorgan Health Care Conference. He said local production could start as early as three or four months.

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Paxlovid is only covered by China’s basic national health insurance until March 31, China’s health security agency said on Sunday. The drug couldn’t produce an annual list of insurable drugs because Pfizer charged too high a price, the administration said.

CEO Bourla said what China plans to pay is “below the lowest in the middle” price bracket — a range 60% to 70% below what high-income countries pay.

“We didn’t agree,” Bourla said. “They are the second highest economy in the world. And I don’t think they should pay less than [El] Salvatore.”

If negotiations don’t change the situation by April, Bourla said, “we will move forward with the private market in China, which matters.”

Demand for Paxlovid from China has exploded from a few thousand to millions, he said without elaborating.

note and Chinese companies are also selling Covid drugs in the local market.

Concentrate on the treatment

Since mandatory testing for Covid ended in early December, official local outbreak figures have fallen sharply.

When asked about Covid deaths, Wang said calculating additional deaths is the best way, such as comparing the numbers to December 2021.

It is not clear how quickly these numbers would be available. China has said only a handful of deaths meet its criteria for being linked to Covid. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the total number of deaths in the country has increased since December.

“At this point in time, I don’t think it’s necessary to investigate each and every case. Treating patients should be a priority,” said Liang Wannian, executive vice-dean of the Vanke School of Public Health at Tsinghua University. That’s according to a CNBC translation of his Mandarin language comments on Wednesday.

Liang said the country will be on the lookout for new Covid variants and will report them in a timely manner. He didn’t go into much detail about the procedures for doing this.

A change in the Covid-related hospitalization or death rate would be the earliest indication of a new variant, said Dr. Chris Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, in late December. He said the likelihood of a new Covid variant emerging in China is slim.

The World Health Organization said this week that China is providing more information on the Covid-19 outbreak, but the country is still far under-reporting deaths, according to Reuters.

On Wednesday, Liang said the most difficult phase of China’s Covid wave was over, especially in rural areas.

But he said according to China’s latest Covid policy, local authorities facing a major outbreak could still move classes online and restrict large gatherings.

People wearing masks walk next to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) testing site in New York City, New York, the United States, December 12, 2022.

Eduardo Munoz | Reuters

The Biden administration has extended the Covid-19 public health emergency until April as a highly transmissible omicron subvariant is raising concerns the US could face another wave of hospitalizations for the disease this winter.

“The COVID-19 public health emergency remains in effect, and as HHS has previously committed, we will provide states with 60-day notice in advance of a possible termination or expiration,” a spokesman for the Department of Health said Health and Human Services.

The US has renewed the Covid public health emergency every 90 days since the Trump administration first issued the declaration in January 2020.

The declaration of a state of emergency has had a tremendous impact on the US healthcare system over the past three years. It has protected public health insurance coverage for millions, given hospitals greater flexibility to respond to increases in patient numbers, and expanded telemedicine.

The White House Covid Task Force, led by Dr. Ashish Jha has repeatedly tried to reassure the public that the US is in a much stronger place today due to the widespread availability of Covid vaccines and treatments that prevent serious illness and death from the virus.

In August, HHS urged local and state health officials to prepare for the emergency to end soon. HHS has committed to providing state governments and healthcare providers with 60 days’ prior notice before the statement is lifted.

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President Joe Biden said the pandemic was over in September, a time when infections, hospitalizations and deaths were falling. But HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra told reporters during a call in October what the virus does this winter would determine whether or not the emergency must go ahead.

Once U.S. officials decide to end the public health emergency, hospitals will lose flexibility in how they deploy staff, add beds and care for patients as admissions spike. The lifting of the state of emergency could also impact the greatly expanded role pharmacies have played in administering vaccines during the pandemic, although the extent of that impact is not yet clear.

Millions of Americans are also expected to lose health insurance coverage under Medicaid in the coming months. Congress prohibited states from kicking people out of the program for the duration of the public health emergency. As a result, Medicaid enrollments have increased by 30% to over 83 million.

Last month, Congress severed Medicaid protections from the public health emergency and said states could begin withdrawing people from Medicaid in April if they no longer meet eligibility requirements.

Omicron XBB.1.5 is spreading rapidly

The subvariant omicron XBB.1.5 quickly becomes dominant in the USA. Scientists believe it has a growth advantage because it attaches better to human cells and is also adept at bypassing immunity. The World Health Organization has described it as the most transmissible subvariant to date, although there is no data to suggest it makes people sicker.

Since the arrival of omicron in the US in late 2021, unleashing massive waves of infection across the US and around the world, Covid has splintered into an alphabet soup of subvariants that evolve to become increasingly adept at promoting immunity from vaccination and to avoid infections.

Columbia University scientists found in a study published in December that the BQ and XBB families of Omicron subvariants pose the biggest threat to the Covid vaccines and could be causing a surge in breakthrough infections. These subvariants are also resistant to all approved antibody treatments used to protect people with compromised immune systems.

In a series of Twitter posts over the past week, Jha said he’s concerned about XBB.1.5’s rapid rise, but doesn’t think the subvariant will be a major setback. He encouraged people to get an Omicron booster shot if they haven’t already, and encouraged the susceptible to get antiviral treatment if they have a breakthrough infection.

According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only 38% of seniors age 65 and older have received an omicron booster shot to date. There is concern that the proliferation of XBB.1.5 could lead to an increase in hospitalizations and deaths among older Americans.

Jha said most people who are currently being hospitalized and dying from Covid are aged 70 and over and are either not up to date on their vaccines or not receiving treatment if they have a breakthrough infection.