Millions are travelling across China for lunar new year - The Economist

EVERY YEAR, Chinese migrant workers travel home for lunar new year, their country’s biggest annual holiday. On January 22nd the Spring Festival, as the occasion is also known, heralds the year of the rabbit. Sporadic lockdowns throughout China, coupled with official discouragement of travel, have suppressed domestic travel in the past two years. Celebrations for the year of the ox, in 2021, and the year of the tiger, in 2022, were muted. But now, with covid-19 restrictions recently abandoned, chunyun—the Spring Festival travel rush—has returned.

According to Baidu Qianxi, a mobility-data service based on China’s main search engine, traffic volumes are higher than at any time in the past five years. The service aggregates data from Baidu’s map app—similar to Google maps—and records every request someone makes to its location services. It can track individual devices across the country and captures all modes of transport, from trains to aeroplanes. The app receives up to 120bn location requests a day, allowing it a bird’s eye view of movement in China.

Migrant workers are haring home for the year of the rabbit. The official “travel-rush” period—as defined by the Chinese government—began on January 7th, the 16th day of the 12th month of the lunar calendar. The Economist calculates that the traffic volume from then to January 19th has been 24% higher than in the equivalent period in 2022 and 117% higher than in 2021 (see chart). It is also 12% higher than in 2019—the year of the pig—before the pandemic struck. On January 19th this year the most popular destinations were the areas around Chongqing and Chengdu, in Sichuan province in the south-west, suggesting many migrant workers from these areas are returning home (see map).

Some things have changed since the year of the pig. Data suggest that many people are choosing to travel by car instead of by public transport, perhaps to avoid infection. According to China’s Ministry of Transport, trips made by small cars were up by 15% on January 19th compared with the equivalent day in 2019. Road travel accounted for 76% of overall traffic. Yet there are concerns that a wave of visitors could be followed by a wave of infections, despite the shift away from public transport. The government says that the outbreak may have peaked already in December. Our analysis shows that searches for “fever” on search engines peaked on December 17th, which suggests that the government may be correct. But more travel will still result in more infections, and the more far-flung the destination for this year’s celebrations, the greater the probability that the travellers are bringing not just themselves, but the virus, too. ■

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