COVID-19 death in Hebei exposes anti-virus loopholes in villages
Liu Caiyu Published: Jan 14, 2021 09:00 PM Updated: Jan 14, 2021 10:32 PM
North China's Hebei Province reported a death from COVID-19 on Thursday, becoming the country's first coronavirus fatality in about eight months. The case might not be a direct indication that the virus has become more pathogenic but sounds an alarm regarding loopholes in epidemic control in rural areas as most patients in the outbreaks this winter are elderly people from villages with many suffering from chronic diseases.
Although China has invested a huge amount of money in promoting nucleic acid detection capabilities in county-level hospitals, interviews with villagers found that village doctors lack the ability to identify the virus, the awareness to report fever cases and still prefer to choose intravenous therapy that could lead to cross infections instead.