During the Spring Festival holiday, China's township-level medical clinics and urban community-based healthcare centers provided door-to-door health services and follow-up visits for more than 9.8 million recipients aged 65 and over nationwide.

These primary-level institutions also offered health counselling to over 11.8 million recipients within the age range, and provided 40,000 patients with referrals, according to Fu Wei, an official with the National Health Commission, at a press conference Monday.

Citing the monitoring data, Fu said the total number of patients transferred by primary-level health institutions has declined compared to the pre-holiday stage.

Since last December, China has carried out health surveys and multi-level health risk classification for the key population who are aged 65 and over and those with underlying health conditions, said Fu.

Building on the effort, relevant authorities have maintained weekly contact with people classified with high or medium COVID-19 infection risks, so as to keep abreast of their health conditions. They have also implemented early detection, identification, intervention and referral for key vulnerable populations with a higher chance of severe illness once infected, said Fu.