Rural areas on the mainland are beefing up medical treatment capabilities as the nation prepares for the Lunar New Year travel rush.

Hundreds of millions of people, mostly working in factories near the southern and eastern coasts, are due to return to the countryside for the Lunar New Year – which begins on January 22 – with authorities saying the holiday travel rush is expected to last for 40 days, from January 7 to February 15.

In the run-up to the travel rush, the China Daily newspaper has reported that a hospital in a rural part of Inner Mongolia, where more than 100,000 people live, was seeking bidders for a 1.9 million yuan contract to upgrade its wards into intensive care units.

Liancheng County Central Hospital in the eastern Fujian province was also seeking tenders for ambulances and medical devices, ranging from breathing machines to electrocardiogram monitors.

The report comes as the mainland officially reported one new Covid death for Wednesday, down from three on Tuesday, but foreign governments and many epidemiologists believe the numbers are much higher.

Mainland authorities have said it only counts deaths of Covid patients caused by pneumonia and respiratory failure as Covid-related.

While the country's National Health Commission has stopped issuing daily case numbers, officials in several cities estimate that hundreds of thousands of people have been infected in recent weeks. (Agencies)