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Coronavirus pandemic
ChinaScience

Coronavirus: China’s move to free up hospital resources welcomed by doctors

  • Mild cases will no longer be sent to hospitals, and people can now isolate at home for seven days after they’re discharged
  • Infectious disease expert Zhang Wenhong says it will ease the burden on the health care system and bring ‘more confidence’ in Covid-19 fight

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A temporary hospital set up in Changchun, Jilin province, as the city battles an outbreak. People with mild cases of Covid-19 will no longer be sent to hospital under China’s revised treatment guidelines. Photo: Xinhua
Zhuang Pinghui
China’s revised Covid-19 treatment guidelines will reduce hospital stays, ease the burden on the health care system and bring “more confidence” in the battle against the virus, according to a top infectious disease expert.
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Zhang Wenhong, who leads an expert panel on Covid-19 control and treatment in Shanghai, said the updated guidelines – released on Tuesday – had been welcomed by frontline doctors as the “most scientific and best” so far.

Under the new guidelines, mild cases will no longer be sent to hospitals, though they will still have to isolate at designated facilities. Previously, anyone who tested positive was admitted to hospital for observation. After leaving hospital, people will also be able to isolate at home for seven days instead of spending 14 days at a quarantine facility.

“People will soon be discharged from hospital much faster and without further isolation [in a designated facility], as hospitals focus on treating the severe cases,” Zhang, who is also head of infectious diseases at Huashan Hospital, told reporters on Thursday.

“This will optimise and significantly free up health care resources and we will have more confidence about fighting Covid-19 in the future.”

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The changes come as cases are surging in China and millions of people are again under lockdown as the highly transmissible Omicron variant spreads, and Beijing sticks to its tough zero-Covid strategy. More than 2,400 locally transmitted cases were reported across the country on Thursday.
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