Chinese epidemiologist Fang Houmin on Monday advised people who have not yet contracted Covid-19 to avoid traveling during the Lunar New Year holidays, which are expected to trigger a new wave of cases in the country.
“It is not recommended that these people travel long distances, because the chances of becoming infected will increase,” Fang said, quoted by the specialized newspaper Health Times.
The specialist advised those who have not yet been infected to “avoid going to public places if you notice symptoms such as a sore throat or cough” and “seek medical attention.”
The expert’s remarks come on the eve of the Lunar New Year, when hundreds of millions of Chinese emigrant workers in cities return to their home countries.
This is the largest internal migration on the planet and coincides, this year, with the end of the policy of zero cases of Covid-19, which for almost three years restricted the internal flow of people in the Asian country.
The end of the restrictions, after protests in several cities in China, triggered an unprecedented wave of infections in urban areas, which must now spread to the interior of the country, where health resources are considered insufficient.
The expert’s recommendations were the subject of debate on the country’s social networks. “This year I just want to finally go home,” said one netizen on the Weibo social network, although others also expressed their fear of infecting family members.
Nearly 900 million people have already contracted the novel coronavirus infection in China, according to a Peking University study, after the country dismantled the zero covid policy.
Some 60,000 people died from the disease between December 8, when restrictions began to be relaxed, and January 12 of this year, according to official data.
The State Council (Executive) asked, in the middle of last month, local authorities to give priority to health services in rural areas “to protect the population”, pointing out “the relative scarcity of health resources” and the proximity of the festive season.
On January 8, Covid-19 ceased to be managed in China as a category A disease -the maximum level of danger and for which the most severe measures are necessary to contain it- to become a category B disease, which it includes fewer controls, thus effectively marking the end of the zero Covid policy.
Source: TSF
