Packed ICUs, crowded crematoriums: COVID-19 roils Chinese towns

Relatives carry paper offerings to burn for their dead relative at the Gaobeidian Funeral Home in northern China’s Hebei province on Dec. 22, 2022.The Associated Press Yao Ruyan paced frantically outside the fever clinic of a county hospital in China's industrial Hebei province, 70 kilometres southwest of Beijing. Her mother-in-law had COVID-19 and needed urgent medical care, but all hospitals nearby were full. "They say there's no beds here," she barked into her phone. As China grapples with its first-ever national COVID-19 wave, emergency wards in small cities and towns southwest of Beijing are overwhelmed. Intensive care units are turning…