Shanghai hospital struggles with Covid infections

Authorities in Shanghai are struggling to deal with a suspected wave of Covid infections at a large hospital for the elderly, in a sign of how serious the outbreak is in China's biggest city.

Shanghai has not declared any new Covid deaths in the city since the outbreak of the latest wave of the virus, reports BBC.

But the BBC has spoken to people working at the Donghai Elderly Care Hospital in the city's eastern Pudong area who have described a dire situation and desperate attempts to help dozens of elderly patients, some of whom have died.

A nurse told that the first positive cases were discovered at the facility - one of the biggest of its kind in Shanghai - three weeks ago.

Since then it has been sealed off, and specialist teams from the municipal centre for disease control have been trying to contain the spread.

Another care worker who was drafted in to work at the hospital last week told us she had seen one patient die, and heard of a colleague who had dealt with another dead patient.

But workers say that it is hard to tell if the victims had died from Covid as there have been many infections.

The nurse told that she was working and sleeping at the hospital before being moved to a quarantine facility. Since then she said a colleague had told her the situation had gotten "worse and worse" with new cases "every day".

She claimed that both medical staff and experts sent in by the Shanghai government were also infected, saying hundreds of people there had caught Covid.

She told the BBC, “At first, we just kept working as usual, but later they started to block each department and the manager told us the real situation was much worse.”

She said there were patients who were refusing to wear masks.

A care worker who has been working at the hospital this week told that "sanitary conditions were pretty bad" when she arrived.

Meanwhile on social media, there have been multiple complaints from people who said they were unable to contact their loved ones in the facility.

One man who told the BBC his grandmother is at the hospital said it was very difficult to get information on her condition. A care worker whom he spoke to initially was unable to help further after they tested positive and were quarantined.

He says he has not been able to speak to his grandmother on the phone since shortly after the lockdown began on Monday. Staff who picked up when he called were unable to give any details about what she was being given to eat, or any medication administered, he said.

The BBC has tried to contact Donghai Hospital, Pudong New District Health Commission and the Shanghai Municipal Commission for comment, but none responded.