Millions leave cities as CNY holiday nears
Experts fear spread of virus to provinces
SHANGHAI: Urban workers crowded train stations across China’s largest cities yesterday as the country’s mass migration for Lunar New Year holidays hit high gear, an early sign of economic recovery as officials confirmed a historic plunge due to Covid-19 curbs.
The world’s second-largest economy slowed sharply in the fourth quarter, data showed yesterday, dragging 2022 growth down to one its worst performances in nearly half a century after three years of Covid restrictions and lockdowns.
With mass travel for the Lunar New Year possible for the first time in nearly three years after the relaxing of some of the world’s tightest Covid curbs, the economy stands to gain from hundreds of thousands of people a day spending more as they return to China’s hinterland.
But even as workers move out, health experts fear a broadening and deepening of its Covid outbreak, leaving the elderly in rural villages particularly vulnerable.
Despite Chinese authorities confirming a huge increase in deaths on Saturday — announcing that nearly 60,000 people with Covid had died in hospitals between Dec 8 and Jan 12 — World Health Organization (WHO) officials are seeking a more sweeping accounting of death rates.
The WHO earlier welcomed Saturday’s announcement after last week warning that China was heavily underreporting deaths from the virus.
Specifically, the UN agency wants information on so-called excess mortality — the number of all deaths beyond the norm during a crisis, the WHO said in a statement to Reuters.
“This is especially important during periods of surges when the health system is severely constrained,” the statement said on Monday.
The WHO added that it would continue working with China to provide advice and support, but had not yet fixed another formal meeting with Chinese officials after WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
spoke with Ma Xiaowei, director of China’s National Health Commission, at the weekend.
The Ministry of Transport has estimated the rush will see a total of 2.1 billion passenger trips nationwide between Jan 7 and Feb 15 as many Chinese city dwellers make the most of their first chance for Lunar New Year trips to see extended family in home regions since the pandemic began.
Chinese officials jettisoned Beijing’s “zero-Covid” policy — an approach previously championed by ruling
Communist Party leader Xi Jinping — in early December, letting the virus run unchecked across its population of 1.4 billion people.
State media reported that some 390,000 passengers were expected to travel from Shanghai train stations yesterday alone for what is known as the Spring Festival holiday — seen as the world’s largest annual mass migration before Covid.
As travellers moved through stations in Shanghai, China’s largest city, some expressed optimism despite the risks.
“I am not worried about the virus. Because we are young, our immunity is okay,” 37-year-old migrant worker Zhou Ning said outside the Shanghai Railway Station as he prepared to head back to his home in Sichuan province.
“Back in my hometown, there are many people who have tested positive, but I am not worried about it.”
On a train leaving Shanghai, migrant worker Feng Hongwei, 21, said he was “so happy” as he began a trek home to Puyang, Henan. “I haven’t seen my parents in two years”.