"The hospital is just overwhelmed from top to bottom," Bernstein told Reuters at the end of a "stressful" shift at the privately owned Beijing United Family Hospital in the east of the capital.Sonia Jutard-Bourreau, 48, chief medical officer at the private Raffles Hospital in Beijing, said patient numbers are five to six times their normal levels, and patients' average age has shot up by about 40 years to over 70 in the space of a week."They want the medicine like a replacement of the vaccine, but the medicine does not replace the vaccine," Jutard-Bourreau said, adding that there are strict criteria for when her team can prescribe it.Elsewhere in China, medical staff told Reuters that resources are already stretched to the breaking point in some cases, as COVID and sickness levels amongst staff have been particularly high.One nurse based in the western city of Xian said 45 of 51 nurses in her department and all staff in the emergency department have caught the virus in recent weeks."