People in China were worried on Thursday about the possibility of transmitting Covid-19 to their elderly relatives, as they plan to return to their hometowns for the holiday period that the World Health Organization (WHO) says could unleash a violent outbreak of the virus.
The Lunar New Year holiday, which officially begins on Jan. 21, comes after China last month abandoned a strict virus control regime – with mass lockdowns – that sparked widespread frustration and sparked historic protests.
This abrupt turnaround allows the virus to circulate among a population of 1.4 billion people who lack natural immunity, having been shielded from the infection since it first emerged in late 2019, and include many elderly people who are not fully vaccinated. .
The outbreak spreading from China’s megacities to rural areas with scarcer medical resources is overwhelming some hospitals and crematoria.
With little official data from China, the WHO said on Wednesday that controlling the virus during the holiday period considered the world’s biggest annual migration of people will be challenging.
Other warnings from leading health experts in China advising people to avoid contact with elderly relatives during the holidays were among the most read on Weibo, a Chinese platform similar to Twitter, on Thursday.
“That’s a very pertinent suggestion, go back to hometown… or put seniors’ health first,” wrote one user. Another said he didn’t dare visit his grandmother and would leave gifts for her at the door.
“It’s almost New Year’s Eve and I’m afraid she’s getting lonely,” the user wrote. More than 2 billion trips are expected across China during the broader Lunar New Year period, which begins Jan. 7 and lasts for 40 days, according to the Ministry of Transport. That’s double last year’s travel volume and 70% of what was seen in 2019, before the outbreak of the pandemic in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.
Criticism about lack of data
Foreign governments and the WHO have criticized China for not being forthright about the scale and severity of the country’s outbreak, which has prompted several nations to impose restrictions on Chinese travellers.
China has recorded five deaths or fewer a day over the past month, numbers inconsistent with the long lines seen at funeral homes. The country did not report data on deaths from Covid-19 on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Liang Wannian, head of a panel of Covid experts under China’s health authority, told reporters that deaths can only be accurately counted after the pandemic ends.
While international health experts have predicted at least a million Covid-related deaths this year, China has recorded just over 5,000 since the start of the pandemic, a fraction of what other countries have been reporting as they reopen their economies.
(Reporting by Bernard Orr, Liz Lee, Eduardo Baptista and Jing Wang in Beijing)
Source: CNN Brasil
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