China's Great Migration,

2 Billion People To Travel

In Next 40 Days
- By Ankit Agrawal
 ankitmay28
Playlist
For all my Videos.
 WHAT’S HAPPENING?

China on Saturday marked the first day of "chun yun", the 40-day
period of Lunar New Year travel known pre-pandemic as
the world's largest annual migration of people,

Bracing for a huge increase in travellers and the spread of COVID-

19 infections.

This Lunar New Year public holiday will be the first since 2020
without domestic travel restrictions.
 CHUN YUN

This is the time for epic family reunions in China.

The holiday season marks the beginning of a new year in the

traditional lunisolar calendar of China and

Is now also observed in other countries like Vietnam, where

people celebrate it by the name “Tet”.
Over 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.
 GOOD & BAD

Investors are hoping that the reopening will eventually reinvigorate a

$17-trillion economy suffering its lowest growth
in nearly half a century.

But the abrupt changes have exposed many of China's 1.4 billion
population to the virus for the first time, triggering a wave of infections
that is overwhelming some hospitals, emptying pharmacy shelves of
medicines and causing long lines to form at crematoriums.
The Ministry of Transport said on Friday that it expects more
than 2 billion passengers to take trips over the next 40 days,
an increase of 99.5% year-on-year and reaching
70.3% of trip numbers in 2019.
 REACTIONS

There was mixed reaction online to that news, with some comments
hailing the freedom to return to hometowns and celebrate the
Lunar New Year with family for the first time in years.

Many others, however, said they would not travel this year, with worry
of infecting elderly relatives a common theme.

"I dare not go back to my hometown, for fear of bringing the

poison back," said one such comment on the Twitter-like Weibo.
 THE FEAR

There are widespread concerns that the great migration of workers in

cities to their hometowns will cause a surge in infections
in smaller towns and rural areas,

That are less well-equipped with ICU beds and ventilators to deal
with them.

"China's rural areas are wide, the population is large, and the per
capita medical resources are relatively insufficient," National Health
Commission spokesman Mi Feng said on Saturday.
"It's necessary to provide convenient services, accelerate vaccination
for the elderly in rural areas and the construction of
grassroots lines of defense."

Authorities say they are boosting grassroots medical services, opening

more rural fever clinics and instituting a "green channel“
for high risk patients,

Especially elderly people with underlying health conditions, to be

transferred from villages directly to higher level hospitals.
 BORDER REOPENING?

On Sunday China will reopen its border with Hong Kong and will also
end a requirement for travellers coming from abroad to quarantine.

That effectively opens the door for many Chinese to travel abroad for
the first time since borders slammed shut nearly three years ago,
without fear of having to quarantine on their return.

Jillian Xin, who has three children and who lives in Hong Kong, said
she was "incredibly excited" about the border opening, especially
as it means seeing family in Beijing more easily.
China's surge in cases has caused concern internationally and
more than a dozen countries are now demanding COVID
tests from travellers from China.

The World Health Organisation said on Wednesday that

China's COVID data underrepresents the number of
hospitalisations and deaths from the disease.
 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, people who had made appointments had

to queue for about 90 minutes at a centre for PCR tests needed for
travel to countries including mainland China.
 CHINA’S SHIFTING FOCUS

For much of the pandemic, China poured resources into a vast PCR
testing program to track and trace COVID-19 cases, but the focus
is now shifting to vaccines and treatment.

China is in talks with Pfizer Inc to secure a licence that will allow
domestic drugmakers to manufacture and distribute a generic version
of the U.S. firm's COVID-19 antiviral drug Paxlovid in China.

Many Chinese have been attempting to buy the drug abroad and
have it shipped to China.
 China has relied on nine domestically-developed COVID vaccines
approved for use, including inactivated vaccines, but none have been
adapted to target the highly-transmissible Omicron variant
and its offshoots currently in circulation.

The overall vaccination rate in the country is above 90%, but the rate
for adults who have had booster shots drops to 57.9%, and to 42.3%
for people aged 80 and older, according to government
data released last month.
Q. Which among the following is the first scientifically
approved vaccine?

A) Oral polio vaccine

B) MMR vaccine (measles, mumps, and rubella)

C) Tetanus vaccine

D) Smallpox vaccine
China's Great Migration,
2 Billion People To Travel
In Next 40 Days
- By Ankit Agrawal
 ankitmay28

PDF on Telegram ankitmay28

PDF on Facebook

ankitmay28
 ankitmay28
Playlist
For all my Videos.