Chinese Face Difficulties Obtaining Medicines After COVID Policy U-Turn

“Pharmacies didn’t sell much in the way of cold and fever medicines during the lockdown, but now the lockdown is lifted, we have to buy medicines just in case.”

People queue to buy medicine at a pharmacy amid the COVID-19 pandemic in Nanjing, in China's eastern Jiangsu Province on Dec. 20, 2022. STR/AFP via Getty Images

China’s healthcare system was unprepared for the Chinese Communist Party’s drastic change in its COVID-19 policy, resulting in widespread drug shortages and soaring prices.

According to a Dec. 19 report by China’s NetEase News, in Beijing and Tianjin, the fever-reducer ibuprofen for adults and children has become hard to find.