Chinese travellers in first Lunar New Year without Covid restrictions
Millions in China are heading to train stations to travel back home for the first Lunar New year holiday without domestic Covid travel restrictions in 2020.
Luggage-laden passengers flocked to railway stations and airports in China’s megacities, heading home for holidays that health experts fear could intensify a Covid-19 outbreak that has claimed thousands of lives.
After three years of strict and suffocating antivirus controls, China in early December abruptly abandoned its zero-Covid policy, letting the virus run freely through its population of 1.4 billion.
Authorities said nearly 60,000 people with Covid had died in hospitals between 8 December and 12 January, a huge increase from previous figures that had been criticised by the World Health Organization for not reflecting the scale and severity of the outbreak.
Ahead of the lunar new year holidays, also known as the spring festival, which officially starts on 21 January, state media has been filled with stories of rural hospitals and clinics bolstering their supplies of drugs and equipment.
In China’s most populous city, Shanghai, temporary night trains have been added to meet demand for travellers heading to the eastern Anhui province.
Meanwhile, daily arrivals in the gambling hub of Macau exceeded 55,000, the highest daily arrivals since the pandemic began.
China’s transport ministry has said it expects more than 2bn trips in the weeks around the holidays.
