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Coronavirus China
Opinion
Winston Mok
Winston Mok

The View | How China can prevent a Covid-19 surge among its rural elderly this Lunar New Year

  • Unlike in cities, it’s not too late for a phased reopening of rural China, where under-resourced healthcare means the elderly face greater risks from visitors
  • This Spring Festival, staying away from your loved ones until they are fully vaccinated may be the greatest act of love

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Rural doctors visit households to provide medical support in Jiwei township, Huayuan county, Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, in central China’s Hunan province on December 29. Photo: Xinhua
Winston Mok
The greatest people movement on Earth, on hold for the past three years, is resuming this Lunar New Year. In particular, the migration of people from mainland China’s urban to rural areas is likely to represent a big portion of Chinese travel during the festive period, whether domestically or internationally.

While long-anticipated family reunions should be joyous occasions, such travel also poses unprecedented health risks for millions in a country where many rural senior citizens are underprotected from Covid-19.

The spread of Covid-19 may have peaked in mega cities such as Beijing and Guangzhou, but the worst is still to come for rural towns and villages. Some of China’s biggest cities have probably achieved herd immunity after suffering huge human costs. But Covid-19 has only penetrated some villages. If such cases are allowed to become common, the consequences could be unthinkable.
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Over the Spring Festival holiday, intercity traffic for leisure and family visits will surge. With the border reopened, international travel will increase. From Seoul to Hong Kong, cities are managing the risks of receiving mainland visitors. As developed economies have highly vaccinated populations and a degree of herd immunity, the health risks are quite manageable, even if some countries still require negative Covid-19 tests for travellers from mainland China.

But while Chinese travellers pose little Covid-19 danger to foreign populations, the risk is grave for its rural regions. Unlike the cities that have long reopened, China’s rural areas still have limited exposure to Covid-19. The unvaccinated or undervaccinated in these regions can expect to face higher health risks from an uncontrolled influx of visitors.

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Such travel is likely to accelerate the spread of Covid-19 in rural regions, where the medical infrastructure serving an elderly population is more rudimentary and therefore outbreaks may well be more severe. With effective suppression and mitigation measures, hopefully the tragedies witnessed in cities after reopening can still be averted in rural China.

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