China’s zero-covid approach curbs holiday travel and enforces lockdown
Many Chinese are marking a quiet May Day holiday this year as the government’s zerocovid approach restricts travel and enforces lockdowns in multiple cities.
All restaurants in Beijing were closed to dine-in customersfrom yesterday through the end of the holiday on Wednesday, open only for takeaways and deliveries.
Parks and tourist attractions in the Chinese capital are limited to 50 per cent of their capacity. The Universal Studios theme park in Beijing, which opened last year, said it had shut down temporarily.
The pandemic situation varies across the vast nation of 1.4 billion people, but the Transport Ministry said last week that it expected 100 million trips to be taken from Saturday to Wednesday, which would be down 60 per cent from last year.
Many of those who are travelling are staying within their province as local governments discourage or restrict crossborder travel to try to keep out new infections.
China is sticking to a strict zero-covid policy even as many other countries are easing restrictions and seeing if they can live with the virus.
Much of Shanghai – China's largest city and a finance, manufacturing and shipping hub – remains locked down, disrupting people's lives and dealing a blow to the economy.
The major outbreak in Shanghai, where the death toll has topped 400, appears to be easing. The city recorded about 7,200 new locally transmitted cases on Saturday, down from a peak of 27,605 on April 13.
Outside of Shanghai, only 364 new cases were found in the rest of mainland China.
Beijing, which has recorded 350 cases in the past nine days, is restricting activity to try to prevent a large outbreak and avoid a city-wide lockdown similar to Shanghai.
Individual buildings and housing complexes with coronavirus cases have been locked down.
Visitors to many office buildings and tourist sites such as the Great Wall must show proof of a negative Covid-19 test within the previous 48 hours.
Online booking agency Ctrip said last week that people were booking travel to cities which are mostly virus-free, such as Chengdu in Sichuan province and the nearby city of Chongqing.
Other popular destinations include Wuhan, where the world's first major outbreak of Covid-19 occurred in early 2020.
About half of the orders on the Ctrip platform were for travel within a province.
In other parts of the world, differing pandemic-related moves were made. Italy and Greece have relaxed some Covid-19 restrictions, in a sign that life is increasingly returning to normal before Europe's peak summer tourist season.
Greece's civil aviation authority announced it was lifting all coronavirus rules for international and domestic flights except for the wearing of face masks during flights and at airports.
Under a decree passed by Italy's health ministry, the country has done away with the health pass that had been required to enter restaurants, cinemas, gyms and other venues.