A "body" from a Shanghai nursing home was found alive when being taken to the morgue, as the city’s Covid-19 outbreak and prolonged lockdown stretch aged-care facilities and medical facilities to breaking point.
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A video shared online saw funeral home staff took the elderly from Shanghai Xinchangzheng Welfare Hospital but found he still had vital signs. They then dragged out the body bag, telling the nursing home workers, "Alive, see, don't cover him any more."
The municipal government confirmed the incident and said it has launched an investigation, local media reported.
While the nursing home apologized, the error has triggered widespread anger and condemnation among Chinese people, according to discussions on social media.
“This is murder,” one Weibo user wrote among a raft of other angry posts. “The confidence crisis in the city is getting too bad.”
“This has nothing to do with the epidemic, or any kind of normal negligence and irresponsibility, this is a serious dereliction of duty that almost led to death,” Hu Xijin, the former editor-in-chief of the Communist Party backed Global Times newspaper and an influential commentator, wrote on his personal Weibo account.
The nursing care resident has been sent to the hospital for treatment and their vital signs are stabilizing, local media reported.
Ge Fang, the director of the nursing home, has been removed from his post. Four officials in Putuo District, including the director of the Putuo District Civil Affairs Bureau Zhang Jiandong, have also been held accountable.
The five are under further investigation, Shanghai Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision revealed.
The mistake comes as Shanghai’s lockdown enters its fifth week and new Covid cases remain in the thousands each day. The tough restrictions and compulsory isolation of all virus cases and close contacts have created havoc in the city of 25 million, with people unable to access essential medical care.
Most of the more than 400 deaths in the latest wave have been elderly people with underlying health conditions, with reports that some nursing homes weren’t reporting deaths.
While it remains unclear whether the person was infected with Covid or vaccinated, the low inoculation rate among China’s elderly remains the country’s Achilles heel in the fight against the pandemic.
In Shanghai, just 62% of residents over 60 years of age have been fully vaccinated, and only 15% of the population aged over 80 have received two shots. The average age of deaths reported Sunday was 84, according to the local government.
