Zeng Xianhua, 46, has worked as a doctor at a private clinic in Lianshan town, Guanghan city, since 2006.

A graduate from a medical college in Wuhan, Hubei province, Zeng said he had never experienced anything as "terrible and unimaginable "as the first wave of infections in December.

His clinic only has eight beds. From Dec 10 to 15, between 200 and 300 patients with COVID-19 visited the clinic, where one bed was shared by two patients for intravenous injection.

"One woman was so upset that she held our nurse and cried. She kept saying 'Save me'," Zeng said.

The clinic had almost returned to normal by Jan 10. On Monday, only one bed was occupied by a patient.

Zhang Xiaoxia, a physician at a township hospital in Tangxian county, Baoding city, Hebei province, said she is now working normally again, as there have been no COVID-19 patients at the hospital since Spring Festival.

During the December peak, a doctor was seeing 20 to 30 patients with the disease a day, she said.

"At that time, we often worked into the night," Zhang added.

Wan Ning, a doctor at a clinic in Xibaoshui village, Tangxian county, Hebei, said it only received six or seven patients after the holiday, and most of them were elderly people collecting medicines for underlying conditions.

"No one has come to us with a cough or fever since the holiday started," he said.

The village has a population of 5,800, and at the end of last year the clinic received about 160 visits from patients with COVID-19 symptoms, Wan added.

"At the time, the clinic was the most sought-after place in the village," Wan said.