Travel for China’s lunar new year holiday, the largest annual human migration on earth, has been reduced to a trickle this year after the government asked citizens to stay put to curb the risk of spreading coronavirus.
Mass testing, quarantines and contact tracing have largely smothered Covid-19 transmission within China since March, allowing the economy to stage a rapid recovery.
But the government, determined to guard against even small-scale outbreaks, wants to minimise long-distance travel during the biggest holiday of the year. China’s state council has encouraged people even in low-risk areas to celebrate the new year, which begins on February 12, where they live and work, rather than making what is for many is a once-per-year pilgrimage back to the ancestral homestead.