First Day Of Lunar Homecoming Season In Quiet China

JAKARTA - The atmosphere at train stations and airports on the first day of the Lunar New Year homecoming season in China, Thursday, January 28, was observed to be quiet. Meanwhile, Beijing is increasingly tightening the route of arrival, especially for international flight service users.

The Spring Festival holiday which coincides with Chinese New Year for Chinese citizens is the biggest homecoming momentum in the world. But in the last two years the atmosphere has been much different due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Chinese government reminds the public not to go home to avoid the risk of contracting COVID-19. The Ministry of Transportation of China (CMT) estimates that the homecoming season in 2021 will be 1.1 billion trips or 60 percent lower than the same momentum in 2019 and 20 percent in 2020.

The CMT had previously estimated that there would be 1.7 billion trips. However, the data was corrected again to only 1.1 billion trips.

On the first day of the homecoming season, there were only 25 thousand train passengers from Beijing West Station, down 87.2 percent over the same period last year. Last year, the first day of the homecoming season there was no appeal or ban from the government because at that time Wuhan, Hubei Province, as the place where the first cases of COVID-19 were found, had not been locked down.

Meanwhile, security in Beijing has been tightened ahead of the Lunar New Year holidays. People who have just arrived from a low-risk area are required to show the results of a swab that is valid within the last seven days.

The policy will take effect from Thursday, January 28 to March 15, Beijing Municipal Government spokesman Xu Hejian was quoted as saying by local media, Friday, January 29. People who have just arrived must have their health monitored within 14 days by doing a swab test every seven days.

Unlike the quarantine system. Health monitoring policies allow people to carry out normal activities but are required to report their health conditions to local authorities at all times.

However, people who have just arrived from moderate and high risk areas must show the results of a swab that was valid within the last three days. In the capital city, there are two districts that are COVID-19 crisis areas, namely Daxing and Shunyi. In both districts there are two major airports.