Holiday fears

Before Spring Festival, Chen Ping, Party chief of Chenxiaozhai village, Linquan county, Anhui province, had been increasingly anxious about the spread of COVID-19 in the area during the holiday due to the return of migrant workers.

The village has about 6,500 residents with household registration, but as many locals had moved to cities throughout the country for work, only some 2,000 villagers remained in the area before the holiday.

"However, it seems the virus has disappeared," said Chen Ping, who was a doctor at one of the village's two clinics until 2015, when he was persuaded by the local government to serve as a village cadre.

During Spring Festival, Chen Ping remained on duty in his office for two days completing work unrelated to epidemic control, such as collecting annual fees for rural residents' medical insurance.

Since 2020, many locals had not returned home for Spring Festival. Chen Ping said, "The elderly and the children who remained in the village were missing their family members," adding that life finally returned to normal ahead of Spring Festival.

Although employers in cities want migrant workers to return as early as possible, Chen Ping said most of the outbound villagers would leave home after Lantern Festival, which falls on Sunday, to enjoy a few more days with family members.

Chen Ming, head of a local clinic and brother of Chen Ping, said: "Many people became infected in late December and early January. We received about 70 patients a day and found that most of them had COVID-19 symptoms.

In contrast, the clinic only received seven or eight patients a day during the holiday, and none of them had the disease," Chen Ming said.

While Wang Zhengchao, a resident of Lu'an city, Anhui, was enjoying a family reunion and visiting relatives on Friday night, his 3-year-old son was found to have COVID-19 symptoms. An antigen test later confirmed the boy was infected with the disease.

"Although this is a rare case recently detected in this area, it makes me realize that the virus has not disappeared," said Wang, adding that his son felt much better by Tuesday.