- Hospitals in Beijing and Liaoning are “overcrowded with sick children”
- Students and teachers were crushed, and some courses were canceled
- READ MORE: How Covid lockdowns opened Pandora’s box of diseases
A mysterious pneumonia is reportedly ravaging schools in China.
Local news reports said hospitals in Beijing and 500 miles northeast in Liaoning were “overflowing with sick children” while school classes were “on the verge of closing.”
The children are showing unusual symptoms such as pneumonia and high fever – but no cough or other symptoms normally associated with flu, RSV and other respiratory illnesses.
The warning was issued late Tuesday through ProMed – a large, publicly available global surveillance system that monitors infectious diseases.
It was a ProMed report in December 2019 that alerted many doctors and scientists, including World Health Organization officials, to a mysterious virus that was later named Covid.
Hospitals in Beijing and Liaoning are “overflowing with sick children,” while school classes are “on the verge of closing.”
Hospitals in Beijing and nearly 500 miles northeast in Liaoning
The source of the warning was a report by Taiwanese broadcaster FTV News, which added that “parents questioned whether authorities were covering up the epidemic.”
China has been heavily criticized for covering up the original SARS epidemic in 2003 and the Covid pandemic in late 2019 – both of which were novel viruses that cause pneumonia.
However, the new outbreak could be linked to Mycoplasma pneumoniae, also known as walking pneumonia, which is reportedly increasing in China as the country enters its first winter without strict Covid lockdowns.
The United States and United Kingdom also saw a rise in illnesses such as RSV and influenza following the lifting of pandemic regulations.
FTV News reported that Beijing Children’s Hospital was still overcrowded early Wednesday morning.
“The situation in Liaoning Province is also dire,” FTV News said.
The lobby of Dalian Children’s Hospital is reportedly full of sick children receiving intravenous infusions.
There are also long patient queues at the Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital and the Central Hospital.
A staff member at Dalian Central Hospital said: “Patients have to wait in line for two hours, and we are all in the emergency room and there are no general outpatient clinics.”
Some school classes were canceled completely. Not only are all the students sick, the teachers are also infected with pneumonia.
Mr. Wei, a Beijing citizen, told FTV News: “Many, many are hospitalized.” They do not cough and have no symptoms. They just have a high fever (fever) and many develop lung nodules.”
A ProMed editor’s note said: “This report suggests a widespread outbreak of an undiagnosed respiratory disease…It is not at all clear when this outbreak began, as it would be unusual for so many children to be affected so quickly.” “
“The report does not say that any adults were affected, which suggests that some exposure occurred in schools.”
“ProMed awaits more detailed information on the etiology and extent of this worrying disease in China.”
Pneumonia is an infection that affects either lung and can be fatal. The alveoli can fill with fluid or pus.
In general, pneumonia is not contagious, but the respiratory viruses and bacteria that cause it are.
Walking pneumonia, which typically affects younger children, causes a sore throat, fatigue and cough that can last up to months.
In severe cases, the disease can lead to pneumonia.