In his piece for CNN, he adds that more than 120 million people aged 60 and older live in the countryside – accounting for 23.8% of the rural population, compared with 15.8% in urban areas, according to the 2020 census. As many as 83.4% of the rural elderly population also have underlying conditions, according to a 2015 study, making them highly vulnerable to Covid-19.
Not only is the population more vulnerable than in the cities, the healthcare provisions are more scarce. There are 4.95 hospital beds and 5.18 health professionals per 1,000 population in the countryside. That's compared with 8.81 hospital beds and 11.46 health professionals in the cities.
Yet Chinese officials have attempted to dispel concerns. Wu Zunyou, the chief epidemiologist of China's Disease Control and Prevention, said on Saturday that the present "wave of epidemic has already infected about 80% of the people" in the country of 1.4 billion – suggesting that fears of a Lunar New year spike may be overblown.
"In the next two to three months, the possibility of a large-scale Covid-19 rebound or a second wave of infections across the country is very small," Wu said, speaking on his personal social media account.
Previously, research by the National School of Development at Peking University had suggested more than 900 million people, or 64% of the Chinese population, were "likely" to have been infected with Covid-19 as of January 11.
The university's research also suggested the epidemic peaked across much of the country on December 20, about 13 days after China began easing its Covid restrictions. By the end of December, infections had peaked everywhere in the country, according to the research.
Nearly 60,000 people with Covid died in Chinese hospitals between December 8 and January 12 after China abruptly scrapped its "zero-Covid" policies, according to government data.
However, the World Health Organization's executive director for health emergencies Mike Ryan suggested earlier this month that the numbers released by China "under-represent the true impact of the disease" in terms of hospital and ICU admissions, as well as deaths.
As the official death count remains low, sights on the ground tell a different story. CNN has seen large queues outside crematoriums. Satellite imagery has confirmed crowding outside funeral homes. The BBC has also reported that coffins have sold out in the northern Shanxi province, as the virus circulates in rural areas.
According to Huang, the true scale of the outbreak may never be known. Many villagers do not actively seek care for their symptoms. In some localities, the virus is "treated as a severe cold for people to suffer from silently."
"Because of the lack of access to test kits or the reluctance to be tested, those rural patients who died at home would not be included in the official data," he said.
IN OTHER NEWS
- CNN has learned of the disappearance of a group of friends in China, who took to the streets last year to protest against China's zero-Covid policy. Late in the evening of November 27, demonstrators gathered along the banks of Beijing's Liangma River to remember at least 10 people killed in a fire that consumed their locked-down building in the northwestern city Urumqi. Among the demonstrators was a group of friends – young female professionals working in publishing and journalism. After that night, their lives began to unravel, as police began to track down those who demonstrated along the Liangma River. "As I record this video, four of my friends have already been taken away," said one of the women in a video from late December, obtained by CNN. "When you see this video, I have been taken away by the police for a while." Read the full report here.
- The United States Food and Drug Administration wants to simplify the Covid-19 vaccine process to look more like what happens with the flu vaccine, according to documents posted online Monday. The FDA said it expects to assess circulating strains of Covid at least annually and decide in June which strains to select for the fall season, much like the process to update annual flu vaccines. "This simplification of vaccine composition should reduce complexity, decrease vaccine administration errors due to the complexity of the number of different vial presentations, and potentially increase vaccine compliance by allowing clearer communication," the FDA said.
- More than $60 billion may have been paid out in fraudulent unemployment insurance benefits during the pandemic, according to a report released Monday by the US Government Accountability Office. The watchdog agency, however, warned that the actual amount may be "substantially higher." The report comes a week before newly-in-power House Republicans plan to launch their first investigation into fraud in pandemic assistance efforts. The House Oversight Committee said it will hold a hearing on "the rampant waste of taxpayer dollars in Covid relief programs" on February 1.
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