China ‘Renames’ Covid, Says Patients Above 65 Yrs Will Automatically be Deemed Critical

China on Friday released fresh guidelines with regard to treating critical Covid-19 patients. Now patients above 65 will be deemed as critically ill, even if they do not meet the threshold of being critically ill and are not fully vaccinated or have severe underlying conditions, Chinese government mouthpiece Global Times reported.

China is now focusing on health preservation and prevention of severe cases and has now shifted from focusing on infection prevention based on Covid Zero.

The move, according to the state-run news outlet, will “instruct many frontline medics to save more lives and enable the country to minimize the impact of the strategy change.”

The new guidelines were unveiled by the Chinese National Health Commission on its website and said that the move was based on clinical treatment experience, new traits of the Omicron variants and patients’ symptoms.

The Global Times report also pointed out that China has renamed the Covid disease. “The name of the disease has also been changed from novel coronavirus pneumonia to novel coronavirus infection,” the mouthpiece’s report said.

The guideline advises to keep a close eye on a patient’s oxygen saturation levels, which if drops below 94 will be deemed as concerning. China said that its COVID response is always “people first, life first” while also being dynamic.

Even though China is claiming that it is emerging victorious over the new Omicron wave, reports by Western media outlets claimed citing satellite images that China’s crematoriums and morgues are filling up due to rising number of deaths.

China is being urged to share data with global health agencies so that new variants can be tracked. Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said that China is updating global health agencies regarding new developments in a timely fashion.

“Since the outbreak of the epidemic, China has been sharing relevant information and data with the international community in accordance with the principles of legality, timeliness, openness and transparency, and sharing the global influenza database with the WHO. We’ve shared the genetic sequences of China’s COVID-19 infection cases and made positive contributions to vaccine and drug research and development in various countries,” Wenbin was quoted as saying by news agency Reuters.

The WHO suggested that China is being overwhelmed by the number of infections. “I wouldn’t like to say that China is actively not telling us what’s going on. I think they’re behind the curve. In China, what’s been reported is relatively low numbers of cases in ICUs, but anecdotally ICUs are filling up,” WHO’s emergencies director Mike Ryan was quoted as saying by Reuters.

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