Rural areas need to be prepared for infection surge: China Daily editorial

The upcoming Spring Festival travel rush is causing additional concern that with the optimizing of the prevention and control measures the rapid spread of the novel coronavirus may wreak havoc in rural areas.

Since the latest strain of the virus has proved to be less virulent than previous ones, new optimized measures were introduced, including ending mass nucleic acid testing and allowing people with no or mild symptoms to home quarantine. But the variant is highly transmissible and cases have begun to soar in the big metropolises.

Big cities though are more capable of coping with the surge in cases than the rural areas, where medical resources have traditionally been inadequate as a result of historical development gaps and where most residents are the more vulnerable elderly.

The National Health Commission's plan to upgrade the COVID-19 response in the countryside is a sensible approach to prioritize the most vulnerable — seniors with underlying conditions — and emphasize timely medical services for those facing the highest risks in rural regions.

After all, as numerous cases have shown, infections are generally less threatening in younger demographic groups. It is thus possible to concentrate the limited rural resources on the needy.

The plan calls for the mobilization of available medical resources and the support of one-on-one partnerships between hospitals at different levels.

But its implementation requires coordination. Considering we are only weeks away from the Lunar New Year's Eve, which marks the traditional peak of the Spring Festival travel rush, time is running out to prepare. The relevant authorities must make every effort possible to make sure available resources go to where they are most needed. It is therefore a sensible choice to put the emphasis on the full mobilization of existing resources — accelerating capacity-building for county-level integrated medical care regimes and giving full play to grassroots clinics as the first line of defense in the upcoming battles.

The "hardware" aspects of the NHC program, such as increasing the number of beds in intensive care units and forming one-on-one partnerships, may be easier to accomplish in such a short time. It is the "software" ones, such as personnel training, that may be more difficult. Therefore, in addition to making the utmost endeavors for rural medical preparedness, it may be equally important to remind the general public, from holiday travelers to all rural residents, of the best ways of avoiding infection.

Since we may soon face what is widely anticipated to be the largest wave of seasonal migration following three years of strict pandemic control, it is especially important for individual citizens to take good care of themselves.

Telling rural residents in particular how to protect themselves in risk situations won't take much time. But it may make a big difference.