Reportage
China: with the Lunar New Year, the fear of a new wave of contamination
Masked travelers at Beijing Railway Station, January 14, 2023. AP - Mark Schiefelbein
Text by: RFI Follow
2 mins
As the first Lunar New Year holidays loom without health restrictions since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, many Chinese are worried about infecting their families.
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With our correspondent in Beijing,
Stéphane Lagarde
The blue sky is back after a gray week in Beijing, the icy wind empties the avenues and the red lanterns grow on the streetlights.
It is soon the spring festival and family reunion for hundreds of millions of students and migrant workers.
“
Tomorrow, I'm going home to Gansu.
I'm so happy, I'm going to see my parents and my husband again.
With the epidemic, I haven't seen them for two years now
, ”says this fruit and vegetable seller.
Gansu province has been one of the most infected in recent weeks, his relatives have already been sick?
so the young woman is not worried.
"
Don't go home
"
Others, on the other hand, remain deeply marked by
the surge in contamination
.
Visors, masks, gloves, the body covered with plastic sheets, we met one of the last Pekingese not to have had the Covid-19.
“
Here is all this news on WeChat that makes me so nervous.
I come back to the United States every year for the holidays.
I have to be careful, because you have to present a PCR of less than 48 hours
, ”she explains.
Authorities fear a new epidemic rebound with travel linked to the festivities, as millions of Chinese prepare to reunite with their families.
"
Don't go home
," health officials advised last week.
A distressing question for many Chinese who were looking forward to this first Lunar New Year without barriers, and which in the countryside is likely to come in two colors: red, the color of celebration, and white, that of mourning.
► To read also: Covid-19: how China went from “zero Covid” to “full Covid”
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