Passengers laden with luggage flocked to rail stations and airports in China\u2019s megacities on Monday, heading to their hometowns for the Lunar New Year holidays that health experts fear could intensify a raging Covid-19 outbreak in areas less equipped to handle it.
\nAfter three years of strict anti-virus controls, China abruptly abandoned its \u201czero Covid\u201d policy in early December, letting the virus run freely through its 1.4 billion population.
\nAuthorities said on Saturday nearly 60,000 people with COVID had died in hospitals between Dec 8 and Jan 12, a huge increase from previous figures that had been criticised by the World Health Organisation for not reflecting the scale and severity of the outbreak.
\nEven those numbers most likely exclude many people dying at home, especially in rural areas with weaker medical systems, one health expert has said. Several experts forecast more than one million people in China will die from the disease this year.
\nAhead of the Lunar New Year holidays, also known as the Spring Festival, which officially starts on Jan 21, state media has been filled with stories of rural hospitals and clinics bolstering their supplies of drugs and equipment.
\n\u201cThe peak of Covid infection in our village has passed but the Spring Festival is approaching and there are still left-behind villagers, especially the elderly, at risk of secondary infection,\u201d a doctor in Shaanxi province said in an article by regional news outlet Red Star News.
\n\u201cIf the anti-viral and other drugs were more abundant, I would be more confident,\u201d the doctor added.
\nAs well as fever drugs and oxygen supplies, China\u2019s National Health Commission has said it would equip every village clinic with pulse oximeters, fingertip devices commonly used during the pandemic to quickly check oxygen levels.
\nTravel Rush
\nBeijing\u2019s main railway station has been packed with passengers leaving the capital in recent days, according to Reuters witnesses.
\nIn China\u2019s most populous city, Shanghai, temporary night trains have been added to meet the demand for travellers heading to the eastern Anhui province, state news agency Xinhua reported.
\nMeanwhile, arrivals in the gambling hub of Macau exceeded 55,000 on Saturday \u2014 the highest daily figure since the pandemic began.
\nIn Hong Kong, the government has said it would increase the number of people who can pass through designated land border control points to the mainland to 65,000 people per day from 50,000 between Jan 18 and Jan 21.
\nMore than 2bn trips across China are expected in the weeks around the holidays, its transport ministry has estimated.
\nEconomic RevivalThe revival of travel in China has lifted expectations of a rebound in the world\u2019s second-largest economy, which is suffering its lowest growth rates in nearly half a century.
\nThose hopes helped lift Asian equity markets by 0.9 per cent on Monday, adding to gains of 4.2pc last week.
\nChina\u2019s blue-chip index was up 2pc while the Yuan reached its highest since July. Global oil prices have also been supported by expectations of a recovery in demand from the world\u2019s top importer China.
\nThe first in a slew of economic data due this week showed China\u2019s new home prices fell again in December as Covid-19 outbreaks hurt demand.
\nOther data on economic growth, retail sales and industrial output later in the week are certain to be dismal, but markets will likely look past that to how China\u2019s reopening could bolster global growth, analysts say.
\n\u201cOur baseline scenario assumes nationwide infections will peak in late January,\u201d JP Morgan analysts said in a note on Monday.
\nThe infection peak will catalyse a \u201csustainable\u201d economic recovery from March onwards, with double-digit growth expected in the second quarter of the year, the analysts said.
\nChina\u2019s full-year growth is likely to rebound to 4.9pc in 2023, before steadying in 2024, a Reuters poll showed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Passengers laden with luggage flocked to rail stations and airports in China\u2019s megacities on Monday, heading to their hometowns for the Lunar New Year holidays…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4275,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4274\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}