The coronavirus returned in force in the remote rural villages of southern China in December, then the wave of contamination calmed down, confirming the thesis of virus circulation before the lifting of the “zero-COVID” policy.
In early December, Beijing suddenly abandoned a three-year ultra-restrictive so-called “zero-COVID” policy. The unprecedented epidemic wave, wreaking havoc in overcrowded hospitals and overcrowded crematoriums, is widely being attributed to the sudden easing of health measures.
But in more than a dozen communities in Yunnan and other provinces in rural China that AFP visited, the peak of contamination appears to have been reached earlier than expected, between mid-December and the first week of January.
In the Jingmai Mountains, where a handful of small hamlets dot the slopes of tea plantations, doctor Zhong Qingfang reports that the number of cases peaked around December 20.
“Nobody” was spared, says Ms. Zhong, who continued to work when she herself was infected.
But as of Wednesday evening, only three elderly patients are sitting in his clinic’s waiting room, hooked up to an IV, clearly showing that the crowd has dwindled and with it the contamination.
Other rural health centers in eastern Shandong and Anhui provinces also appear less overwhelmed than residents reported two weeks ago.
The fact that the virus has already migrated inland suggests we are “reaching the end of the current wave in China,” says Asia-Pacific Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infection President Paul Tambyah.
“There are good signs[thatcasesstartedtoincreaseinlateNovember”TambyahtoldAFP
The World Health Organization (WHO) also assumes that the current wave “started long before the relaxation of the ‘zero-COVID’ policy”.
For Paul Tambyah, the acceleration of the virus even before restrictions were eased actually represents “the most likely explanation for the sudden abandonment” of this strategy in early December.
empty clinics
At the Mayidui Health Center in Yunnan, signs direct visitors to a clinic for fever patients, while a bright red sign warns you are in a “positive case zone”.
But no patient in sight.
For Tan, a Chinese medicine practitioner, the change is drastic. At the peak of the new wave, a few days after Jan. 1, she and her colleagues were treating up to 80 COVID patients a day.
In another village in Yunnan, the only doctor, Luo Yongping, told AFP that “about half” of the residents were already infected.
“The peak was reached a week ago,” he explains, lamenting the depletion of stocks of medicines to treat the symptoms of the virus.
Most of the people AFP spoke to were vaccinated.
But Xi Chen, a public health expert at Yale University, points to “the rapid erosion of vaccine effectiveness” in rural areas of China, as “most people received their last dose a year ago.”
For him, the “rapid and unprecedented spread of COVID” can be explained by the low immunity of the population.
Heading for a second wave?
Chinese President Xi Jinping said Thursday he was concerned about the epidemic situation in the country, where tens of millions of Chinese are flocking to the Lunar New Year celebrations.
Medical staff are already on high alert for a possible second wave.
According to Mayidui Hospital’s Tan, staff have prepared kits containing antigen tests and medicines for surrounding villages.
But in areas AFP has visited, few are wearing masks and many are downplaying the seriousness of the virus.
In a whiff of a cigarette, Zhang, a merchant on Mount Jingmai, compares COVID to the flu. “We would have caught a cold anyway in the winter,” he says.
“Many, many people have been infected,” observes a woman who runs a street stall in the wine village of Xinghuoshan. “It is not so bad”.