HONG KONG—A top Chinese public-health official warned of widespread Covid-19 outbreaks across the country’s more vulnerable rural areas as millions of citizens prepare to travel home for the coming Lunar New Year holiday.
Infections have exploded across China after authorities in November and December abruptly scrapped almost all of the country’s stringent pandemic controls amid a sharp economic downturn and rare nationwide protests against the zero-Covid policy that has governed daily life for the past three years.
Beijing’s sudden pivot from its strict pandemic measures came just weeks ahead of the weeklong Lunar New Year holiday, which begins this year on Jan. 21. Tens of millions of Chinese people typically travel across the country to celebrate the holiday with their families, and for many people, it’s the one time of year that they travel.
The annual ritual has largely been put on hold for the past three years, as pandemic measures tended to tighten during the cold-winter months and authorities urged the public to celebrate the holiday where they were.
That has raised expectations for Lunar New Year travel this year—the first without stringent Covid restrictions—and for what some economists have dubbed “revenge spending” and “revenge travel,” as people make up for lost opportunities.
“What we’re most worried about is that it’s been three years and people haven’t gone home to spend the New Year,”
Jiao Yahui,
head of the National Health Commission’s medical administration bureau, told a program on state broadcaster China Central Television. “There could be a retaliatory rush of people from the cities to the countryside,” she said.
In recent weeks, China’s biggest cities have seen hospital emergency rooms and crematoria fill up as the country’s elderly population, whose vaccination rates lag those of their younger counterparts, contracts Covid in…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at WSJ.com: World News…