SHAZHOU (CHINA) : For years, thousands of tourists flocked almost daily to this village in China’s southern Hunan province—an early stronghold of the Communist forces during the country’s civil war—to steep themselves in revolutionary history.
Pandemic-related travel restrictions and lockdowns over the past 12 months slowed that flow to a trickle. China moved this year to drop the curbs but the wave of Covid infections that followed has caused continued disruptions, Shazhou residents say. “The impact on the village economy is huge," said Zhu Zhongxiong, a farmer in his 80s and longtime resident of the 500-person village where many were busy preparing for this month’s Lunar New Year celebrations.
Public health experts and economists have been watching the situation in China’s countryside closely around the holidays because of concerns that migrant workers returning to their rural hometowns could bring a surge in Covid cases and swamp local healthcare systems.
The chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Wu Zunyou, sought to tamp down those concerns earlier this month, saying 80% of Chinese people had already been infected with Covid, adding that a second big wave of cases in the next few months was unlikely.