A calligrapher writes spring couplets, a kind of Lunar New Year decorations, at a stall along a street in Foshan, in southern China's Guangdong province on January 18, ahead of the start of the Lunar New Year, which ushers in the Year of the Rabbit on January 22. (Photo by Jade Gao / AFP)
China’s President Xi Jinping called for more efforts on fighting Covid in a rare video speech addressing citizens to celebrate the upcoming Lunar New Year holidays.
Xi said the current outbreak has been "fierce” and China still faces tough tasks, the official China Central Television reported on Wednesday. The country’s Covid fight needs perseverance as "dawn is just ahead,” Xi said.
The president said he especially worries about epidemic control in rural areas. Xi called on local authorities in the countryside to improve medical care and protect people’s health to the greatest extent possible.
China reported nearly 60,000 Covid-related deaths for the first five weeks of its current outbreak, a toll that experts say is likely an underestimation. Millions of workers will travel from urban areas to their hometowns in the upcoming weeklong Lunar New Year holidays.
The country’s top economic official Liu He told Davos this week that the peak of infections had passed, just weeks after China abandoned all of its Covid curbs. Some foreign institutions hold opposite views, with predictive health analytics company Airfinity Ltd. calling "one longer, more severe Covid wave” ahead.
The elderly are the current focus of China’s Covid fight, Xi said. Older people are more prone to respiratory diseases and aggravation of cardiovascular diseases in the winter, an official with the country’s National Health Commission said last week.
Xi said nursing houses should work with medical institutions to push for more vaccination and improve treatment capacity.
