China yesterday marked the first day of the 40-day period of Lunar New Year travel known as the world’s largest annual migration of people, bracing for a huge increase in travelers and the spread of COVID-19 infections.
This Lunar New Year public holiday, which officially runs from Jan. 21, will be the first since 2020 without domestic travel restrictions.
Over the past month, China has seen the dramatic dismantling of its “zero COVID” program following historic protests against a policy that included mass lockdowns, restricted movement, frequent testing and heavy damage to the world’s No. 2 economy.
Photo: Reuters
The abrupt changes have exposed many of China’s 1.4 billion population to the virus for the first time, triggering a wave of infections that is overwhelming some hospitals and emptying pharmacy shelves of medication.
The Chinese Ministry of Transportation on Friday said it expects more than 2 billion passengers to take trips over the next 40 days, double from last year’s holiday and about 70 percent of trip numbers in 2019.
Online reaction to that news was mixed, with some comments hailing the freedom to return to hometowns and celebrate the Lunar New Year with family for the first time in years.
Many others said they would not travel this year, concerned about infecting elderly relatives.
There are widespread concerns that the great migration of workers in cities to their hometowns could cause a surge in infections in smaller towns and rural areas hospitals lacking in intensive care beds.
However, “it seems the worst has passed” in China’s largest cities, London-based Capital Economics senior analyst Julian Evans-Pritchard wrote in a note on Friday.
Beijing-based Gavekal Research analyst Cui Ernan (崔?南) cited several online surveys as indicating that the wave of infections might have already peaked in most regions, saying there was “not much difference between urban and rural areas.”
Meanwhile, China has suspended or closed the social media accounts of more than 1,000 critics of the government’s COVID-19 policies.
The popular Sina Weibo social media platform said it had addressed 12,854 violations, including attacks on experts, scholars and medical workers and issued temporary or permanent bans on 1,120 accounts.
Beijing had largely relied on the medical community to justify its harsh lockdowns, quarantine measures and mass testing, almost all of which it abruptly abandoned last month. The party allows no direct criticism, and imposes strict limits on free speech.
The company “will continue to increase the investigation and cleanup of all kinds of illegal content, and create a harmonious and friendly community environment for the majority of users,” Sina Weibo said in a statement on Thursday.
Criticism has largely focused on open-ended travel restrictions that saw people confined to their homes for weeks, sometimes without adequate food or medical care.
Anger was also expressed over a requirement that anyone who potentially tested positive or had been in contact with such a person be confined for observation in a field hospital, where overcrowding, a lack of food and poor hygiene were commonly cited.
Additional reporting by AP
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