Fears of a 'dark COVID winter' in rural China grow as the holiday rush begins

In some hospitals, like this one in Chongqing, one of China's largest cities, patients are lying on gurneys in the lobby because beds have run out. (Noel CELIS/AFP via Getty Images)

As COVID-19 spreads largely unchecked from Beijing to Shanghai, China is bracing for a second surge, jumpstarted by millions of people who are planning holiday travel from cities back to their rural villages, where the health care system is far patchier.

"I really don't think the village doctors, or even the township or county hospital, can handle the increased number of severe cases," says Huan Wang, a researcher at the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions. "I think the rural villagers are just left on their own in a dark COVID winter."