Crowds gather to see a band perform at the Solana mall in Beijing on Christmas Eve 2022, as the city recovers from the Covid wave.
Vcg | Chinese Visual Team | beautiful pictures
BEIJING — People are returning to the streets in China’s capital as it emerges from a wave of Covid infections.
During the Monday morning rush hour, traffic in Beijing was up about 90% from a week ago – to the point of “severe congestion”, according to Baidu data.
Last weekend, ticket bookings for Beijing city attractions doubled from last week, according to data cited by China business news site 21st Century Business Herald. CNBC was unable to verify the figures.
Normally, pedestrian traffic at Universal Beijing Resort’s malls and CityWalk over the weekend significantly increased to modestly crowded levels. Not all stores have reopened. Christmas is not a holiday in mainland China, but is often celebrated by young people.
In contrast to the increase in traffic in the city of Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen still had very low levels of congestion on Monday morning, Baidu data showed. Two cities began to see a wave of Covid infections after Beijing did.
The rebound in social activity in Beijing over the past few days is an example of how long it may take the country to escape the economic impact of Covid-free control measures.
A month ago, Beijing residents were dealing with a increase apartment lock And after that openly objected. At the beginning of December, the city and central government abruptly ended many Covid control measures amid an increase in infections.
The city says visits to fever clinics increased 16-fold in a week – to 22,000 on December 11. Four days later, the daily number had risen to 73,000, but by December 21, the number was This was reduced to 65,000 visits. according to an official report on Saturday. The city has a population of about 22 million people.
The report said the proportion of severe Covid cases and elderly patients has increased. It cited a director at a local hospital as saying the rate of visits by the elderly had increased from less than 20% to almost 50%.
Elderly people in China have lower rates of Covid vaccination and often have underlying health conditions that make them more susceptible to the virus. Anecdotally, deaths have increased.
However, there are fewer and fewer official disclosures. China National Health Commission on Sunday stop sharing everyday data on the number of infections and deaths from Covid, ending a practice that lasted nearly three years.
One of the official arguments for maintaining Covid’s tight control measures is that the already strained national health system will struggle to handle the surge in infections.
Covid cases are still increasing
Despite the lack of national-level public data, Zhejiang province – bordering Shanghai – shared on Sunday some of the most detailed official numbers on Covid.
The province said the daily number of Covid-19 infections in the region has exceeded 1 million and will likely double to a peak of 2 million per day by the New Year. The province has a population of about 65.4 million, more than 70% of whom live in cities such as Hangzhou, Alibaba’s hometown.
Zhejiang said fever clinics in the province have a maximum daily capacity of 600,000. Among the larger hospitals in the province, there are more than 12,000 intensive care beds, accounting for 9.9 percent of open beds, authorities said.
According to Baidu data, traffic on Monday morning in Hangzhou was very sparse.
Tourism is increasing
While people are staying at home in some parts of China as infections increase, areas other than Beijing are seeing a recovery in social activity.
Baidu data shows that the southwestern cities of Chengdu and Chongqing have seen such massive increases in road traffic that congestion is as severe as in Beijing.
Many are also planning to travel.
As of Thursday, Trip.com said cross-province travel bookings for the upcoming New Year holiday were up 34% from a year ago. The company said the top 10 popular tourist cities include Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu, Hangzhou and the resort city of Sanya.
On December 15, passenger trips at Sanya’s airport exceeded 36,000 — the highest since August, the local tourism board said.
Before the Chinese government easing domestic travel restrictions on December 7, people tend to be nearby stay to avoid the risk of being away from home due to Covid policy.
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