Overloaded Chongqing Crematory Recruits Day Workers Amid Surge of Deaths in Recent Flare-Up

A health worker checks on a Covid-19 coronavirus patient while transporting the individual through the Chongqing No. 5 People's Hospital in China's southwestern city of Chongqing on December 23, 2022. NOEL CELIS/AFP via Getty Images

China’s southwestern megacity Chongqing is experiencing a surge of infections of COVID amid the recent flare-up.

More than 5 million people in the city, accounting for over 15 percent of its total population, have been infected by the pandemic in the first 20 days of December, according to leaked notes of a virtual health meeting of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) last Wednesday.