© Reuters. A medical worker helps a patient receiving treatment at a hospital emergency department, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Shanghai, China, January 17, 2023. REUTERS/Staff
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by Bernard Orr
BEIJING (Reuters) – Millions of urban workers moved across China on Wednesday ahead of the expected peak of their Lunar New Year mass migration on Friday, as China’s leaders sought to jump-start its COVID-hit economy.
Unrestricted as officials last month ended three years of some of the world’s strictest COVID-19 restrictions, workers flocked to train stations and airports to make their way to smaller towns and rural homes, generating fears of a growing virus outbreak.
Economists are scanning the holiday season, known as the Spring Festival, for glimpses of a rebound in consumption in the world’s second-largest economy after new GDP data on Tuesday confirmed a sharp economic slowdown in China.
While some analysts expect the recovery to be slow, Chinese Vice Premier Liu He told the World Economic Forum in Switzerland on Tuesday that China was open to the world after three years of lockdown due to the pandemic.
Officials with the National Immigration Administration said that, on average, half a million people had been moved in or out of China every day since its borders opened on Jan. 8, state media reported.
But as workers leave megacities such as Shanghai, where authorities say the virus has peaked, many are heading to towns and villages where the unvaccinated elderly have not yet been exposed to COVID and the care systems medical are less equipped.
LARGE SUITCASES WITH WHEELS, GIFT BOXES
As the rise of COVID intensified, some were forgetting about the virus as they made their way to the gates.
Commuters toured train and subway stations in Beijing and Shanghai, many carrying large wheeled suitcases and boxes filled with food and gifts.
“I used to be a little worried (about the COVID-19 epidemic),” said migrant worker Jiang Zhiguang, as he waited in the crowd at Shanghai’s Hongqiao train station.
“Now it doesn’t matter anymore. Now it’s okay if you get infected. You’ll only be sick for two days,” Jiang, 30, told Reuters.
The infection rate in the southern city of Guangzhou, capital of China’s most populous province, has now surpassed 85%, local health officials announced Wednesday.
In more isolated areas, state medical workers are going door-to-door in some outlying villages this week to vaccinate the elderly, with the official Xinhua news agency describing the effort on Tuesday as the “last mile”.
Clinics in rural towns and cities are now being equipped with oxygenators, and medical vehicles have also been deployed in isolated areas.
While authorities on Saturday confirmed a large increase in deaths, announcing that nearly 60,000 people with COVID had died in hospitals between December 8 and January 12, state media reported that health officials were not yet ready to provide information to the World Health Organization (WHO). the additional data you are now looking for.
Specifically, the UN agency wants information on so-called excess mortality – the number of all deaths beyond normal during a crisis, the WHO said in a statement sent to Reuters on Tuesday.
The Global Times, a nationalist tabloid published by the official People’s Daily, quoted Chinese experts as saying China’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was already monitoring such data, but it would take time before it could be published.
Doctors at public and private hospitals were being actively discouraged from attributing deaths to COVID, Reuters reported on Tuesday.
