TORONTO -- Startling footage has emerged from a hospital at the epicentre of the new coronavirus outbreak in central China, apparently showing bodies covered by sheets.
The video, believed to show the inside of Wuhan’s Red Cross Hospital, was widely shared on social media on Friday.
It shows a hospital corridor filled with people wearing surgical masks and health workers in full-body hazardous material suits handling intravenous drips and tending to patients.
“Three bodies have been lying here the whole morning,” the woman recording the video says, according to a translation by social media monitoring agency Storyful .
“Some people are already dead. Until now, nobody’s come to take care of them. Doctors and nurses are all here working in these conditions… I’ve just looked for the person in charge; there’s no leadership and even if there were, they wouldn’t be able to solve this.”
Storyful was unable to independently confirm if the individuals covered by sheets are dead.
According to a report from Beijing News, Wuhan’s Red Cross Hospital was swamped with patients suffering from the coronavirus as of Jan. 23. Long lines could be seen outside the hospital and filling the lobby, with blood infusion rooms and observation wards all overcrowded.
According to Storyful, the footage was originally posted on Chinese messaging app WeChat by a woman claiming to be nurse at Wuhan hospital. It was cross-posted to Weibo, a website similar to Twitter.
China announced Friday that it is building a new 1,000-bed hospital dedicated to patients infected with the new virus that has killed 26 people, sickened hundreds and prompted unprecedented lockdowns of cities during the country's most important holiday, the Lunar New Year.
