More than 20 cities across mainland China have been overloaded with medical waste, with Wuhan, the centre of the Covid-19 outbreak, producing up to six times more medical waste than usual, authorities said.
Medical waste treatment facilities in 28 other cities are working at full load, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment told a press conference on Wednesday, without specifying what the other cities were.
Hospitals in Wuhan, home to 11 million people and 80 per cent of those who died from Covid-19, produced more than 240 tonnes of medical waste daily during the peak of the outbreak, compared with 40 tonnes before the epidemic occurred, said Zhao Qunying, head of the ministry’s emergency office.
The central government has deployed 46 mobile medical waste treatment facilitates to the city, and built a new plant with a capacity of 30 tonnes within 15 days, said Zhao.
