The Right to Accessible COVID-19 Testing in the Post-Epidemic Period under the Urban-Rural Integration: Haishu District, Ningbo City, China

The reasonable distribution of COVID-19 testing facilities is a crucial public necessity to protect the civil right of health and the proper functioning of society in the post-epidemic period. However, most of the current COVID-19 testing facilities are in large hospitals in China, partially overlooking the COVID-19 testing needs of rural dwellers. This paper used shortest-path analysis and the improved potential model to measure the accessibility of current and potential COVID-19 testing facilities, superimposing this with the testing demands of residents, as calculated by the population demand index, so as to comprehensively evaluate the equity of the spatial allocation of the current and potential testing facilities, with a particular focus on Haishu District, Ningbo City, China. The results revealed that the overall accessibility of the current testing facilities in Haishu District was high, while the internal spatial differentiation was considerable. The comprehensive accessibility of testing facilities gradually declined from the downtown areas towards the rural areas. Moreover, roughly half of the rural population needing COVID-19 tests encountered hindrances due to poor access to testing agencies. However, after fully exploiting the potential testing facilities, the comprehensive accessibility of testing facilities was significantly improved, and the inequity in the accessibility to testing facilities was effectively alleviated, which significantly improved the equity of the allocation of testing facilities in Haishu District. The leveraging of current medical facilities to boost the number of testing facilities in rural areas could eliminate the disparity of resource distribution caused by urban and rural binary opposition, and could quickly identify external sources of COVID-19 in rural areas in the post-epidemic period. Moreover, efficient COVID-19 testing combined with the travel records of infection carriers can effectively identify unknown infection cases and obviate large-scale infection outbreaks.

Automated summary

The reasonable distribution of COVID-19 testing facilities is crucial to protecting public health and ensuring the normal functioning of society. However, current testing facilities in China are mostly located in large hospitals, neglecting the testing needs of rural residents. This study used shortest-path analysis and an improved potential model to evaluate the accessibility of current and potential testing facilities, considering the population demand index. The results showed that while the overall accessibility of testing facilities in Haishu District, Ningbo City was high, there were significant spatial differences. By maximizing the utilization of potential testing facilities, the accessibility of testing facilities improved significantly, alleviating the inequity in allocation. Leveraging existing medical facilities to expand testing facilities in rural areas can eliminate the resource distribution disparity and identify sources of COVID-19 in rural areas during the post-epidemic period.