Luggage-laden passengers flocked to railway stations and airports in China's megacities on Monday, heading home for holidays that health experts fear could intensify a COVID-19 outbreak that has claimed thousands of lives.
After three years of strict and suffocating anti-virus controls, China in early December abruptly abandoned its "zero COVID" policy, letting the virus run freely through its 1.4 billion population.had died in hospitals between Dec. 8 and Jan. 12, a huge increase from previous figures that had been criticised by the World Health Organisation for not reflecting the scale and severity of the outbreak.
Ahead of the Lunar New Year holidays, also known as the Spring Festival, which officially starts on Jan. 21, state media has been filled with stories of rural hospitals and clinics bolstering their supplies of drugs and equipment. In China's most populous city, Shanghai, temporary night trains have been added to meet demand for travellers heading to the eastern Anhui Province, China's official state news agency Xinhua reported.
In Hong Kong, the government has said it would increase the number of people who can pass through designated land border control points to the mainland to 65,000 people per day from 50,000 between Jan. 18 and Jan. 21.
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