People in China have been urged not to visit their elderly relatives during the lunar new year break because Covid is spreading swiftly through cities, regional districts, and rural communities, The Guardian reported.
Prof Guo Jianwen, a member of the state council's pandemic prevention team, advised people not to "go home to visit them" if their elderly relatives were not yet afflicted.
“You have all kinds of ways to show you care for them, you don’t necessarily have to bring the virus to their home,” Guo said on Thursday, according to the Guardian.
The holiday season, which begins on January 21, was intended to be a return to festivities and travel after most restrictions were lifted in December, but unfortunately it coincides with a surge of covid cases.
This week, health officials said that the peak of illnesses had passed in numerous major provinces and cities, including Beijing and Shanghai. However, there are grave concerns in rural regions where health resources are few and older individuals are more likely to be unvaccinated.
As per The Guardian's report, an assistant professor specialising in ageing and public health at Yale University Dr Chen Xi stated: “The situation in rural China is very murky. We have strong reasons to believe rural China will get much worse as the spring festival approaches.”
The Guardian has received accounts from individuals in rural China of widespread illnesses, fatalities, and healthcare issues, including locations where officials claim infection levels have not yet peaked.
One woman in Shandong stated her parents were not vaccinated because they did not believe Chinese vaccinations, and they were now afraid to walk outdoors as the virus swept across their hamlet. Villagers in Guangdong province reported pharmaceutical and oxygen supply difficulties.
A guitarist who performs at funerals in Shaanxi stated that business was better than ever, while a woman returning to her small Hunan hamlet bemoaned the construction of at least six new customary burial huts - temporary buildings created for people to mourn an individual.
Regional authorities have been directed to secure the availability of pandemic supplies, including at least two weeks' worth of medication, in addition to advising people not to travel.
The Global Times report stated villages were instructed to establish local teams of drivers to transport patients "when ambulances from medical institutes cannot arrive in time".
China's outbreak was likely exacerbated by poor vaccination rates among the elderly and more restricted health facilities outside of major cities. Over-the-counter medicine has being crowdsourced by online community organisations for hard-hit areas. Protracted government agreements with pharmaceutical corporations have also rendered antiviral drugs harder to get.