China’s Xi Jinping warns of Covid spread as millions travel for lunar new year

Xi Jinping has expressed concern about the spread of Covid-19 to rural China on the eve of the lunar new year, in the Chinese president’s most direct acknowledgment of the worsening health crisis since suddenly abandoning his zero-Covid strategy in early December.

China’s lunar new year holiday marks the world’s biggest annual human migration. Officials have forecast that the country’s 1.4bn people will take 2bn trips to see family in the coming weeks — about two-thirds of pre-pandemic levels.