SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China on Saturday marked the primary day of “chun yun”, the 40-day period of Lunar Recent 12 months travel known pre-pandemic because the world’s largest annual migration of individuals, bracing for an enormous increase in travellers and the spread of COVID-19 infections.
This Lunar Recent 12 months public holiday, which officially runs from Jan. 21, can be the primary since 2020 without domestic travel restrictions.
During the last month China has seen the dramatic dismantling of its “zero-COVID” regime following historic protests against a policy that included frequent testing, restricted movement, mass lockdowns and heavy damage to the world’s No.2 economy.
Investors are hoping that the reopening will eventually reinvigorate a $17-trillion economy suffering its lowest growth in nearly half a century.
Political Cartoons on World Leaders
However the abrupt changes have exposed lots of China’s 1.4 billion population to the virus for the primary time, triggering a wave of infections that’s overwhelming some hospitals, emptying pharmacy shelves of medication and causing long lines to form at crematoriums.
China’s Ministry of Transport said on Friday that it expects greater than 2 billion passengers to take trips over the following 40 days, a rise of 99.5% year-on-year and reaching 70.3% of 2019 trip numbers.
Response to that news online was mixed, with some comments hailing the liberty to return to hometowns and have a good time the Lunar Recent 12 months with family for the primary time in years.
Many others, nevertheless, said they might not travel this 12 months, with worry of infecting elderly relatives a standard theme.
“I dare not return to my hometown, for fear of bringing the poison back,” said one such comment on the Twitter-like Weibo.
There are widespread concerns that the nice migration of staff in cities to their hometowns will cause a surge in infections in smaller towns and rural areas less well-equipped with ICU beds and ventilators to cope with them.
Julian Evans-Pritchard, senior China economist at Capital Economics, acknowledged that risk in a Friday note but went on to say that “in the massive cities that make up much of China’s economy, it seems the worst has passed”.
Ernan Cui, analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics in Beijing, cited several online surveys as indicating that the present wave of infections could have already peaked in most regions, noting there was “not much difference between urban and rural areas.”
Sunday marks the reopening of China’s border with Hong Kong and the top of China’s requirement for inbound international travellers to quarantine. That effectively opened the door for a lot of Chinese to travel abroad for the primary time since borders slammed shut nearly three years ago, without fear of getting to quarantine on their return.
Greater than a dozen countries at the moment are demanding COVID tests from Chinese travellers, because the World Health Organisation said China’s official virus data underreported the true extent of its outbreak.
Chinese officials and state media have defended the handling of the outbreak, playing down the severity of the surge and denouncing foreign travel requirements for its residents.
On Saturday in Hong Kong, individuals who had made appointments needed to queue for about 90 minutes at a centre for PCR tests needed for travel to countries including mainland China.
For much of the pandemic, China poured resources into an enormous PCR testing program to trace and trace COVID-19 cases, but the main target is now shifting to vaccines and treatment.
In Shanghai, for instance, town government on Friday announced an end to free PCR tests for residents from Jan. 8.
A circular published by 4 government ministries Saturday signalled a reallocation of economic resources to treatment, outlining a plan for public funds to subsidise 60% of treatment costs until March 31.
Meanwhile, sources told Reuters that China is in talks with Pfizer Inc to secure a licence that can allow domestic drugmakers to fabricate and distribute a generic version of the U.S. firm’s COVID-19 antiviral drug Paxlovid in China.
Many Chinese have been attempting to purchase the drug abroad and have it shipped to China.
On the vaccine front, China’s CanSino Biologics Inc announced it has begun trial production for its COVID-19 mRNA booster vaccine, referred to as CS-2034.
China has relied on nine domestically-developed COVID vaccines approved to be used, including inactivated vaccines, but none have been adapted to focus on the highly-transmissible Omicron variant and its offshoots currently in circulation.
The general vaccination rate within the country is above 90%, however the rate for adults who’ve had booster shots drops to 57.9%, and to 42.3% for people aged 80 and older, in keeping with government data released last month.
China reported three latest COVID deaths within the mainland for Friday, bringing its official virus death toll to five,267, considered one of the bottom on the planet. International health experts imagine Beijing’s narrow definition of COVID deaths doesn’t reflect a real toll, and a few predict greater than one million fatalities this 12 months.
(Reporting by Casey Hall in Shanghai, Julie Zhu in Hong Kong and Kevin Huang, additional reporting by Jindong Zhang; Editing by Tony Munroe)
Copyright 2023 Thomson Reuters.