Fears of a 'dark COVID winter' in rural China grow as the holiday rush begins

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/12/23/ [login to see] /fears-of-a-dark-covid-winter-in-rural-china-grow-as-the-holiday-rush-begins
As COVID-19 spreads largely unchecked from Beijing to Shanghai, China is bracing for a second surge, jumpstarted by millions of people who are planning holiday travel from cities back to their rural villages, where the health care system is far patchier.

"I really don't think the village doctors, or even the township or county hospital, can handle the increased number of severe cases," says Huan Wang, a researcher at the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions. "I think the rural villagers are just left on their own in a dark COVID winter."

As the Lunar New Year approaches, health officials are concerned the celebrations could turn into superspreader events, catching rural systems off guard and driving up infections in a country where natural immunity is nearly non-existent and vaccine hesitancy has remained stubbornly high among the older population.

"In China the messaging has to be really careful right now, since we will have a new year coming up and people are going to travel to the rural communities, so it's going to be very important to inform the public that it's coming," says Ali Mokdad, an epidemiologist and chief strategy officer at the University of Washington's Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME).