The Ministry of Transport estimates 2 billion passengers in the coming days
China celebrates this Saturday the first day of ‘chun yun’, the massive exodus (the largest of the year) to celebrate, over 30 days, the Lunar New Year. Officially, the celebrations are limited to the days between January 21 and 27, but the reality is that the kick-off to the festivities occurs today. Since the start of the pandemic, in 2020, it is the first time that the Asian country celebrates the Lunar New Year without the strict restrictions of recent years. Trips to meet with the family and celebrate the holidays will multiply and could cause a peak -another one- of covid infections, especially among the elderly. There are also two aggravating factors: we are in the middle of winter and vaccination is lower in rural areas, where the hospital system is not particularly robust.
days ago, a study led by experts from Shanghai Public Health Center predicted that the rural zones and the outskirts of cities will experience the wave of infections and warned of “a peak of infections significant” in those areas during the holidays of Lunar New Year. Typically many workers immigrants in the cities return to their places of origin to spend the holidays with their families, which will cause “the spread of the epidemic to accelerate,” according to scientists. The study warns that inland provinces far from the main Chinese cities such as Shaanxi (hub), gansu (west) or qinghai (west) will experience the peak of infections between mid and late January.
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The Chinese authorities have always opted for the policy of covid zerowhich has caused massive tests, very strong restrictions on the movements of the population, considerable damage to the economy, and historic protests by the people against the police.
The Ministry of Transportation explained yesterday that more than two billion passengers are expected in the next 30 days, an increase of 99.5% compared to what was recorded last year.