Coronavirus: Chinese travellers chafe at tough rural Lunar New Year restrictions
- Critics question need for tests and two weeks of monitoring over the holiday
- Health authorities say huge numbers of people on the move worsen already poor containment capacity in the countryside
The National Health Commission announced late on Wednesday that people returning to rural areas from other provinces over the holiday would have to produce a negative Covid-19 test taken within seven days and undergo 14 days of “health monitoring” at their rural home.
“Sporadic and cluster outbreaks in rural areas have markedly increased this winter, which has severely affected the normal order of life and production,” the commission said in a notice on its website after social media users complained about the inconvenience.
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China plans to vaccinate 50 million people before the Lunar New Year holiday
Amid the biggest wave of new infections since March, millions of residents in Hebei province surrounding Beijing and in the northeastern provinces of Jilin and Heilongjiang have been put into lockdown in recent weeks.
