In Depth: China’s Rural Covid Wave Exposes Flaws in Plan to Prevent Hospital Overcrowding

Across China’s vast countryside, where the health care system has fewer resources at its disposal, an earlier-than-expected surge in Covid infections stretched local health care staff to the limit last month.

“The peak lasted for more than 10 days,” recalled Mo Haikun, a village doctor in South China’s Guangdong province, on Jan. 15. “You didn’t even have time to sleep.”