China’s Ministry of Transport estimates more than 2 billion people will make trips over the next 40 days.
Shanghai:
China on Saturday marked the first day of “chunyun”, a 40-day period of Lunar New Year travel known before the pandemic as the world’s largest annual migration of people, standard suffered a massive increase in tourist arrivals and the spread of COVID-19 infections.
This Lunar New Year holiday, officially starting January 21, will be the first holiday since 2020 without domestic travel restrictions.
Over the last month, China has seen the dramatic lifting of its “no-COVID” regime following historic protests against a policy that includes routine testing, travel restrictions, blockades of goods and services. series and caused heavy damage to the world’s No. 2 economy.
Investors are hoping that the reopening will eventually revive a $17 trillion economy that is suffering its slowest growth in nearly half a century.
But abrupt changes exposed many of China’s 1.4 billion population to the virus for the first time, sending a wave of infections flooding some hospitals, emptying drug shelves and causing Long lines of people at crematoriums.
China’s Ministry of Transport said on Friday that it expected more than 2 billion passengers to make trips over the next 40 days, up 99.5% year-on-year and reaching 70.3% of trips in 2019.
Reactions were mixed to that news online, with some comments praising the freedom to return to their homeland and celebrate the Lunar New Year with family for the first time in years.
However, many others said they would not travel this year because fears of infecting elderly relatives were a common theme.
“I dare not return to my hometown for fear of bringing back the poison,” said one such comment on Twitter-like Weibo.
There is concern that the mass migration of workers from cities to their home countries will cause an increase in infections in smaller towns and rural areas that are less equipped with beds. ICU and ventilator to deal with them.
Julian Evans-Pritchard, senior China economist at Capital Economics, acknowledged that risk in a report on Friday but went on to say that “in major cities that make up the bulk of the Chinese economy. , it seems the worst is over”.
Ernan Cui, an analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics in Beijing, cited several online surveys indicating that the current wave of infections may have peaked in most regions, noting that that “there is not much difference between urban and rural areas”.
BORDER OPENING
Sunday marks the reopening of China’s border with Hong Kong and the end of China’s requirement for domestic international travelers to be quarantined. That has effectively opened the door for many Chinese to go abroad for the first time since the border closed nearly three years ago without fear of being quarantined upon return.
More than a dozen countries are now requiring Chinese travelers to be tested for COVID, as the World Health Organization says China’s official virus data underreports the true extent of its outbreak.
Chinese officials and state media have defended their handling of the outbreak, downplaying the severity of the outbreak and condemning foreign travel requirements for their residents.
On Saturday in Hong Kong, people with appointments had to queue for about 90 minutes at a PCR testing center needed to travel to countries including mainland China.
INSTANT TREATMENT
For much of the pandemic, China has poured resources into an extensive PCR testing program to track and trace COVID-19 cases, but the focus is now shifting to vaccines and treatments.
In Shanghai, for example, the city government on Friday announced the end of free PCR testing for residents from January 8.
A circular released Saturday by four government ministries signaled a reallocation of financial resources for treatment, outlining a public financing plan to subsidize 60% of treatment costs through May 31. 3.
Meanwhile, sources told Reuters that China is in talks with Pfizer Inc to obtain a license that would allow domestic drugmakers to manufacture and distribute a generic version of Paxlovid’s antiviral drug Paxlovid. US companies in China.
Many Chinese have tried to buy medicine abroad and have it shipped to China.
On the vaccine front, China’s CanSino Biologics Inc announced that it has begun trial production of a COVID-19 mRNA-enhanced vaccine, known as CS-2034.
China has relied on nine domestically-developed COVID vaccines that have been approved for use, including inactivated vaccines, but none have been adapted to target the potentially infectious variant of Omicron. high transmission and its offshoots are currently circulating.
The overall vaccination rate in the country is above 90%, but the proportion of adults who received booster shots fell to 57.9% and 42.3% for people 80 years of age and older, according to government data. announced last month.
China reported three new COVID deaths in the mainland on Friday, bringing its official total to 5,267, one of the lowest in the world. International health experts believe that Beijing’s narrow definition of COVID-19 deaths does not reflect the true number, and some predict more than a million deaths this year.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from an aggregated feed.)
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