Inside Shanghai's Largest Makeshift Covid Hospital

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Yu Beibei never thought she would live in the same room with a thousand other people until she tested positive for Covid-19.

Yu, a resident of Shanghai, lived with her husband, their two-year-old daughter and a nanny.

They were ordered to join a mass testing in the community on April 2 and all but the little girl were found to be positive with Covid-19.

After being kept under home lockdown for ten days, Yu and her husband and their nanny were transferred into the largest makeshift hospital in Shanghai.

Their daughter was handed over to her husband's father before they were hospitalised.

Yu told the Associated Press that she sneezed and that her nose had been blocked since April 2, and then she lost part of her taste and smell.

But the symptoms only lasted for couple of days and then she felt fine, but she wasn't allowed to stay at home to quarantine.

Anyone who tests positive must spend at least a week in centralised observation centres in pre-fabricated buildings or gymnasiums and exhibition halls to limit the spread of the virus.

"There is no medicine or injection treatment in the shelter," Yu said. "So far all we have is a self-healing treatment scheme."

She said the doctors would come to take temperatures twice a day and patients had to log their health information with their mobile phones.

The hospital has been converted from the National Exhibition and Convention Center in Shanghai and covers about 420-thousand square metres, with a capacity of 50-thousand beds.

For Yu and others in the makeshift hospital, the poor sanitation and the ceiling lights are the main issues.

"Bathrooms are not very clean," she said. "So many people use them and volunteers or cleaners can't keep up."

We haven't found a place with a hot shower," Yu added. "Lights are on throughout whole nights and it's hard to fall asleep."

More than 100 makeshift hospitals have been established in Shanghai, which offer over 160-thousand beds to COVID-19 patients, according to reports from the official Chinese media.

Yu said most of the patients look in good shape.

"You can hardly see obvious illness with them, or in other words, there are no obvious symptoms," she said. "There are people coughing, but I have no idea if they have pharyngitis or omicron."

Officials warn that Shanghai still doesn't have its latest surge of the omicron variant under control, although the 25 million people of the city have been confined to their homes for at least two weeks.

The lockdown has led to frustration among residents, with food running out and people being unable to receive deliveries.

Yu said it seemed that people had been more anxious about the struggle for food and other supplies under lockdown, rather than fear of the coronavirus.

"At the beginning people were frightened and panicked by the virus, yet with the publication of the figures every day, people have started to accept the fact that this particular virus is not that horrible," Yu said.

The number of newly-detected daily cases in the city edged upwards to 23,073 - all but 3,200 of them in people showing symptoms.

With more than 300-thousand cases in total, the ongoing outbreak is China's biggest of the pandemic, although mass testing has caught many asymptomatic cases and no deaths have been reported.

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