Covid Keeps Workers in Factories, Distorting China Spending
- Covid restrictions mean many choosing to work during holidays
- Travel decline set to help exports, hurt consumer spending
WATCH: In January 2020, as details of a mysterious pneumonia started emerging, hundreds of millions of Chinese travelers boarded planes and trains in the world's biggest annual human migration - the Lunar New Year holidays. One year on, China's success in controlling the pandemic is accelerating its economic ascent, but it may still be some years before the sheer scale of the annual celebration returns to pre-pandemic levels. Tom Mackenzie explains.
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For the first time in her life, Zhang Sufang won’t be going home for the Lunar New Year. Instead the 37-year-old production supervisor is exchanging gifts with her parents and 16-year-old son by post as fears of reigniting the pandemic in China disrupt the nation’s biggest holiday.