Wrapup 2: China's 'great migration' kicks-off under shadow of COVID

Cansino Biologics

07/01/2023 09:22

(Adds comments from China's National Health Commission)
    By Casey Hall
       SHANGHAI, Jan 7 (Reuters) - China on Saturday marked the
first day of "chun yun", the 40-day period of Lunar New Year
travel known pre-pandemic as the world's largest annual
migration of people, bracing for a huge increase in travellers
and the spread of COVID-19 infections.  
    This Lunar New Year public holiday, which officially runs
from Jan. 21, will be the first since 2020 without domestic
travel restrictions.
    Over the last month China has seen the dramatic dismantling
of its "zero-COVID" regime following historic protests against a
policy that included frequent testing, restricted movement, mass
lockdowns and heavy damage to the world's No.2 economy.
    Investors are hoping that the reopening will eventually
reinvigorate a $17-trillion economy suffering its lowest growth
in nearly half a century.
    But the abrupt changes have exposed many of China's 1.4
billion population to the virus for the first time, triggering a
wave of infections that is overwhelming some hospitals, emptying
pharmacy shelves of medicines and causing long lines to form at
crematoriums. 
    The Ministry of Transport said on Friday that it expects
more than 2 billion passengers to take trips over the next 40
days, an increase of 99.5% year-on-year and reaching 70.3% of
trip numbers in 2019. 
    There was mixed reaction online to that news, with some
comments hailing the freedom to return to hometowns and
celebrate the Lunar New Year with family for the first time in
years. 
    Many others, however, said they would not travel this year,
with worry of infecting elderly relatives a common theme.
    "I dare not go back to my hometown, for fear of bringing the
poison back," said one such comment on the Twitter-like Weibo.
    There are widespread concerns that the great migration of
workers in cities to their hometowns will cause a surge in
infections in smaller towns and rural areas that are less
well-equipped with ICU beds and ventilators to deal with them.
        Authorities say they are boosting grassroots medical
services, opening more rural fever clinics and instituting a
"green channel" for high risk patients, especially elderly
people with underlying health conditions, to be transferred from
villages directly to higher level hospitals.  
        "China's rural areas are wide, the population is large,
and the per capita medical resources are relatively
insufficient," National Health Commission spokesman Mi Feng said
on Saturday.
    "It's necessary to provide convenient services, accelerate
vaccination for the elderly in rural areas and the construction
of grassroots lines of defense."
    INFECTION PEAK REACHED
    Some analysts are now saying the current wave of infections
may have already peaked. 
    Ernan Cui, an analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics in Beijing,
cited several online surveys as indicating that rural areas were
already more widely exposed to COVID infections than initially
thought, with an infection peak already reached in most regions,
noting there was "not much difference between urban and rural
areas."
    On Sunday China will reopen its border with Hong Kong and
will also end a requirement for travellers coming from abroad to
quarantine. That effectively opens the door for many Chinese to
travel abroad for the first time since borders slammed shut
nearly three years ago, without fear of having to quarantine on
their return.
        More than a dozen countries are now demanding COVID
tests from travellers from China. The World Health Organisation
said on Wednesday that China's COVID data underrepresents the
number of hospitalisations and deaths from the disease.
    Chinese officials and state media have defended the handling
of the outbreak, playing down the severity of the surge and
denouncing foreign travel requirements for its residents.
    On Saturday in Hong Kong, people who had made appointments
had to queue for about 90 minutes at a centre for PCR tests
needed for travel to countries including mainland China.   
    TREATMENT TO THE FORE
    For much of the pandemic, China poured resources into a vast
PCR testing program to track and trace COVID-19 cases, but the
focus is now shifting to vaccines and treatment. 
    In Shanghai, for example, the city government on Friday
announced an end to free PCR tests for residents from Jan. 8. 
    A circular published by four government ministries Saturday
signalled a reallocation of financial resources to treatment,
outlining a plan for public finances to subsidise 60% of
treatment costs until March 31.
    Meanwhile, sources told Reuters that China is in talks with
Pfizer Inc  PFE.N  to secure a licence that will allow domestic
drugmakers to manufacture and distribute a generic version of
the U.S. firm's COVID antiviral drug Paxlovid in China.
    Many Chinese have been attempting to buy the drug abroad and
have it shipped to China. 
    On the vaccine front, China's CanSino Biologics Inc
 6185.HK  announced it has begun trial production for its COVID
mRNA booster vaccine, known as CS-2034.
    China has relied on nine domestically-developed vaccines
approved for use, including inactivated vaccines, but none have
been adapted to target the highly-transmissible Omicron variant
and its offshoots currently in circulation.
    The overall vaccination rate in the country is above 90%,
but the rate for adults who have had booster shots drops to
57.9%, and to 42.3% for people aged 80 and older, according to
government data released last month.
    China reported three new COVID deaths in the mainland for
Friday, bringing its official virus death toll since the
pandemic began to 5,267, one of the lowest in the world. 
    International health experts believe Beijing's narrow
definition of COVID deaths does not reflect a true toll, and
some predict more than a million deaths this year. 
    <^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
EXCLUSIVE-China in talks with Pfizer for generic COVID drug -
sources     urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N33S014
FACTBOX-China to reopen borders, including with Hong Kong, after
3 years     urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL4N33R0G8
FACTBOX-Countries mandate COVID tests for China travellers   
 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N33Q17U
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^>
 (Reporting by Casey Hall in Shanghai, Julie Zhu in Hong Kong
and Kevin Huang
Additional reporting by Jindong Zhang
Editing by Tony Munroe and Frances Kerry)
 ((Casey.Hall@thomsonreuters.com;))