China plays down COVID outbreak with holiday rush at full tilt
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[January 20, 2023]
By Liz Lee and Alessandro Diviggiano
BEIJING (Reuters) -People across China crowded into trains and buses for
one of its busiest days of travel in years on Friday, feeding fears of
new surges in a raging COVID-19 outbreak that officials say has hit its
peak.
In comments reported by state media late Thursday, Vice Premier Sun
Chunlan said the virus was at a "relatively low" level, while health
officials said the number of COVID patients in hospital and with
critical conditions was on the decline.
But there are widespread doubts about China's official account of an
outbreak that has overwhelmed hospitals and funeral homes since Beijing
abandoned strict COVID controls and mass testing last month.
That policy U-turn, which followed historic protests against the
government's tough anti-virus curbs, unleashed COVID on a population of
1.4 billion that had been largely shielded from the disease since it
emerged in the city of Wuhan in late 2019.
Some health experts expect that more than one million people will die
from the disease in China this year, with British-based health data firm
Airfinity forecasting COVID fatalities could hit 36,000 a day next week.
"Recently, the overall pandemic in the country is at a relatively low
level," Sun said in comments reported by the state-run Xinhua news
agency.
"The number of critical patients at hospitals is decreasing steadily,
though the rescue mission is still heavy."
Her comments came on the eve of one of the most frenetic travel days in
China since the pandemic erupted in late 2019, as millions of
city-dwellers travel to their hometowns for the Lunar New Year holiday
that officially begins on Saturday.
More than 2 billion trips are expected to take place across China
between Jan. 7 and Feb. 15, the government estimates.
Excited passengers laden with luggage and boxes of gifts boarded trains
on Friday, heading for long-awaited family reunions.
"Everyone is eager to go home. After all, we haven't seen our families
for so long," a 30-year-old surnamed Li told Reuters at Beijing's West
railway station.
But for others, the holiday is a reminder of lost loved ones.
Gu Bei, a writer from Shanghai, said on the Weibo social media platform
that she had been waiting nearly two weeks to have her mother cremated
and that the funeral home could not tell her when the service would be
scheduled.
China's internet regulator said this week it would censor any "fake
information" about the spread of the virus that could cause "gloomy"
sentiment during Lunar New Year festivities.
"I heard no dark and gloomy words are allowed during the new year. Then
let me mourn my mother now," Gu said in her post, which did not specify
her mother's cause of death.
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Travellers wait for their trains at
Hangzhou East railway station during the Spring Festival travel rush
ahead of the Chinese Lunar New Year, in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province,
China January 20, 2023. China Daily via REUTERS
Spending by funeral homes on items
from body bags to cremation ovens has risen in many provinces,
documents show, one of several indications of COVID's deadly toll.
PENT-UP DEMAND
President Xi Jinping said this week that he was concerned about an
influx of travellers to rural areas with weak medical systems, and
that protecting the elderly - many of whom are not fully vaccinated
- was a top priority.
China reported a large jump in COVID hospitalisations in the week
through Jan. 15, to the highest since the pandemic began, according
to a World Health Organization report on Thursday.
Hospitalisations rose by 70% on the previous week to 63,307,
according to the WHO, citing data submitted by Beijing.
But in a news conference on Thursday, health officials said the
number of COVID patients reporting to hospital had peaked with more
than 40% fewer people being treated with critical conditions on Jan.
17 compared with a peak on Jan. 5.
China has said nearly 60,000 people with COVID died in hospital
between Dec. 8 and Jan. 12. However, that toll excludes those who
died at home, and some doctors have said they are discouraged from
putting COVID on death certificates.
While China's reopening has been chaotic, investors are hopeful that
it will help revive its $17 trillion economy, placing bets that have
lifted Chinese stocks and its yuan currency to multi-month highs.
"Markets widely anticipate a surge of pent-up demand will be
unleashed from the reopening of China's economy," Nomura analysts
said in a note.
They cautioned that a fall in household wealth and a surge in youth
unemployment, a hangover from years of lockdowns and travel curbs,
may temper the rebound.
While international flights are in short supply, Chinese tourists, a
much-missed mainstay of the world's retail and travel industry, are
starting to travel again.
Malls from Macau to Bangkok are aiming to lure them in with red
lantern displays and special dances to mark the Year of the Rabbit -
and steep discounts.
Chinese spending on travel had grown to $255 billion in 2019,
accounting for 33% of spending in the global luxury personal goods
market, according to estimates from the Bain consultancy.
(Reporting by Liz Lee, Alessandro Diviggiano, Bernard Orr and the
Beijing newsroom; Writing by John Geddie; Editing by Robert Birsel)
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