The Government of China has called on the country’s local authorities to ensure that people in rural areas are protected from new waves of coronavirus as the country records an increase in cases and is forced to relax the stringent measures imposed under President Xi Jinping’s ‘zero COVID’ policy.
In a new directive, the State Council’s Prevention and Control Mechanism has called on local hospitals and clinics to ensure medical services and proper treatment for high-risk patients in these areas, especially for the elderly and those with previous pathologies.
«Rural areas should strengthen their medical capabilities to treat severe cases and enable these medical facilities to minimize mortality levels,» the government said, according to reports in the South China Morning Post.
Since last week, China is gradually abandoning the severe restrictions imposed because of the pandemic following protests in several parts of the country precisely against these measures.
However, due to the poor distribution of healthcare resources, the Asian country is facing difficulties in dealing with waves of coronaviruses. The directive urges provincial hospitals to set up task forces to survey these areas and establish an inter-county medical collaboration network to further manage these regions.
In this regard, they have emphasized that hospitals should ensure that intensive care beds used for COVID-19 patients exceed 4 percent of the total number of hospital beds.
