China’s wave of COVID-19 is “coming to an end,” health officials said yesterday, adding that there had been no sign of a new surge from the Lunar New Year holiday, despite a big increase in travel compared with last year.
Government figures released yesterday showed a big rise in tourism and hospitality activity compared with the same time last year. Factory activity has also rebounded for the first time in four months, an early sign of economic return after the country reported its slowest growth in about half a century during strict COVID-19 controls.
After abruptly lifting its “zero COVID” restrictions in early December, China was swamped by a wave of COVID-19 cases. Available data on admissions to hospitals and fever clinics released in the past few weeks showed an apparent peak in infections early last month.
Photo: EPA-EFE
There were concerns that the mass travel of hundreds of millions of people over the Lunar New Year holiday could further spread infections.
However, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention yesterday said “there has not been an obvious rebound in COVID cases.”
“In this time, no new variant has been discovered, and the country’s current wave is coming to an end,” it said.
Chinese Ministry of Transport data showed that travel in the first 22 days of this year’s holiday was 75.8 percent higher than last year’s, although it was still only about half that of 2019’s before the pandemic.
Officials had predicted that travel would increase by 99.5 percent year-on-year over the whole 40 days, and reach 70.3 percent of pre-pandemic levels, analysis firm Trivium said.
Other economic figures were mixed, as China grapples with the lingering economic effects of “zero COVID.” The most positive results were in the tourism and hospitality sectors, which reached almost 81 percent of pre-pandemic levels.
Domestic tourism trips increased to 88.6 percent of 2019’s level, the ministry of culture and tourism said, but revenue from consumption-related industries grew by just 12.2 percent in the first week of the holiday period.
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