[FILE IMAGE] Travellers walk with their luggage at Beijing Capital International Airport, amid the coronavirus disease outbreak in Beijing, China December 27, 2022.[FILE IMAGE] Travellers walk with their luggage at Beijing Capital International Airport, amid the coronavirus disease outbreak in Beijing, China December 27, 2022.
But the abrupt changes have exposed many of China’s 1.4 billion population to the virus for the first time,emptying pharmacy shelves of medicines and causing long lines to form at crematoriums. There are widespread concerns that the great migration of workers from cities to their hometowns will cause a surge in infections in smaller towns and rural areas that are less well-equipped with ICU beds and ventilators to deal with them.
Ernan Cui, an analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics in Beijing, cited several online surveys as indicating that rural areas were already more widely exposed to COVID infections than initially thought, with an infection peak already reached in most regions, noting there was “not much difference between urban and rural areas.”
On Saturday in Hong Kong, people who had made appointments had to queue for about 90 minutes at a centre for PCR tests needed for travel to countries including mainland China.For much of the pandemic, China poured resources into a vast PCR testing program to track and trace COVID-19 cases, but the focus is now shifting to vaccines and treatment.