Beijing discharges patients as pandemic wreaks global havoc

As the pandemic continues to wreak havoc in other regions around the globe, Beijing has repeatedly sent out good news – on Wednesday alone, a total of 32 patients in Beijing were cured and discharged from hospital, the highest number in a single day since the recent outbreak which started in mid-June.

More patients will be discharged from hospital, return to their community, family and work and life in the near future, a Beijing government official said at the daily briefing on Thursday.

Beijing reported zero new confirmed and suspected infections for a third consecutive day on Wednesday.

Since the first patient in Beijing was cured and left the hospital on June 29, more have been discharged in recent days. The number of cured patients reached 13 on Tuesday and then it increased to 32 on Wednesday. As of Thursday, 275 patients are still hospitalized and 26 asymptomatic patients are under observation.

The cluster of infections related to the Xinfadi wholesale food market broke Beijing’s run of 56 days without any community transmissions, but Beijing’s swift actions managed to contain the deadly virus from spreading in the city within 30 days.

However, the global number of COVID-19 infections shows no sign of slowing, with the number of new daily confirmed cases in the US breaking a new record on Wednesday, with 60,000 reported, data by Johns Hopkins University showed.

Wang Guangfa, a respiratory expert at Peking University First Hospital, told the Global Times on Thursday that Beijing contained the epidemic in such short time and with a minimum price, which reminds the world of the importance of identifying infections in the early stage and taking decisive lock-down measures.

The number of COVID-19 infections in the US had surpassed 3 million, with 134,000 deaths as of Wednesday.