China’s Spring Festival has begun amid the outbreak, but the rush of migrant workers back to their hometowns is no longer happening amid calls by authorities to “spend New Year’s in place. In this photo, travelers wearing masks walk outside a train station after an outbreak of coronavirus (Chinese communist virus, COVID-19) on Jan. 28, 2021.
China’s 40-day Spring Festival began on Thursday (28). Crowds at stations and airports in Beijing and Shanghai have plummeted as several provinces and cities called for people to “spend New Year’s Eve in their homes. A large number of people have chosen to go Home despite the Epidemic, and many migrant workers have returned home well before the start of the Spring Festival to avoid detection.
The Chinese New Year is half a month away, but with the authorities calling for a “New Year in Place”, there is no longer any rush to return home. Crowds at Beijing’s train stations have dropped off significantly. Most passengers are wearing masks and some are wearing full protective clothing due to the outbreak.
The Wuhan pneumonia epidemic resurfaced in several provinces and cities, and some places even took the liberty of announcing that no one could return to their hometowns, but Zhao Chenxin, secretary-general of the National Development and Reform Commission, stated at a press conference that no one size fits all.
Travelers wearing masks enter a train station after an outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on Jan. 28, 2021, before the start of the Chinese Lunar New Year and the start of the Chinese New Year travel season.
Zhao Chenxin: “People in high-risk areas should spend New Year’s Eve locally, people in medium-risk areas should in principle spend New Year’s Eve locally, and people in low-risk areas should be advocated to spend New Year’s Eve locally. In addition, the authorities, institutions and state-owned enterprises to take the lead to spend the New Year in place. Each place in the implementation of the policy, not ‘unauthorized increase’, and even more so ‘layers of additional codes’, and even some places to take ‘one-size-fits-all’ measures, which is firmly not allowed. Can not block the travel of people, return home.”
Beijing’s railroad stations have strengthened their “contactless” entry arrangements, with passengers not having to collect their tickets in advance and being able to take off their masks and be authenticated by face recognition systems before entering the station.
Some people were informed of the suspension of train service only after they had purchased their high-speed train tickets and had to refund their tickets. Some people have reported that some HSR schedules were cancelled due to insufficient passenger flow, but the 20% refund fee was not waived, arguing that there was no reason to charge passengers a refund fee.
Miss Ma, a Heilongjiang native living in Beijing, said there are still friends around her who choose to go home to visit relatives under the epidemic.
Miss Ma: “If you do the nucleic acid test today, tomorrow you can get the results, the nucleic acid test can only be used for three days, within three days you take the nucleic acid test report card, take the train and take the car are good, after three days the nucleic acid test is useless.”
A railroad worker stands at the entrance of a train station wearing a mask and protective glasses after an outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on Jan. 28, 2021, just before the start of the Chinese Lunar New Year travel season
Civilian workers worry they won’t be able to return to the city in Time to work after the holiday
She said she would remind her friends and relatives to find out about the outbreak in her hometown before they leave.
Miss Ma: “I can’t stay home for long. Many places to be not a high incidence of the epidemic lot, nucleic acid testing is not much, but if the high incidence of the lot, you can not go back out, out of work will be affected, he will not go back.”
Starting Thursday (28), people returning to Beijing from low-risk areas of the country will need to have a negative nucleic acid test report for seven days and undergo 14 days of health monitoring upon arrival, during which they will have two more nucleic acid tests.
Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou also saw no crowds. Mr. Huang, a resident of Guangzhou, described the city as cold, and even the Guangzhou Railway Station, which has always been crowded, did not feel the atmosphere of the Spring Festival.
Mr. Huang: “Guangzhou in the past two days has not much people. Many factories have stopped running. The roads are much emptier than usual. Because now are early holiday, so colder than before.”
Factories early holiday and many workers to catch up with the Spring Festival before the departure of related.
Mr. Huang: “Now it is stipulated that the 28th back home are required to do nucleic acid testing, but also quarantine, that is, if you return home from high-risk areas, the Family are not allowed to enter, certainly to quarantine. Many workers are to avoid this trouble, are early in the 28th before returning home, to avoid having to undergo nucleic acid testing.”
China’s Ministry of Transport expects 1.7 billion people to move across the country during the 40-day Spring Festival, more than 40 percent less than in 2019 and more than 10 percent more than last year.
Beijing authorities forecast rail and civil aviation traffic to and from Beijing to reach 13.42 million passengers, down more than 40% from last year, while the National Railway Group revised the national Spring Festival traffic, down to 296 million passengers.
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