Virus Insecurity for China’s Year of Ox Suppliers

WUHAN, China (AP) – Vibrant red lanterns line an alley in Wuhan, China, but customers only trickle in. Around the corner, Gong Linhua remembers earlier years when her shop was packed and the street outside was full of snack carts.

“This is the first time in 20 years that I have been in this situation,” said the New Year’s decoration salesman. At the age of 60, she is considering retiring if the economy does not pick up.

Even in China, where COVID-19 is largely under control and economic growth accelerated to 6.5% in the last three months of 2020, the recovery has been patchy and new outbreaks are winding down for some.

The winter has brought China’s biggest resurgence to date with more than 2,000 new cases and two deaths in January. The numbers are small compared to most other countries, but enough for concerned officials to restrict travel and activities for Chinese New Year, one of the biggest holidays of the year.

That’s a blow to airlines, trains, hotels and restaurants and a turnaround from the last major holiday in October, when tourism boomed again. At the bottom of the food chain are the shops that stocked jewelry for the Year of the Ox.

With about two weeks remaining until New Year’s Day on February 12, Wang Cuilan remained optimistic, although sales have been about half a normal year so far.

She and her husband have run a shop in the alley near Gong’s store for about 20 years. Business for hotels and entertainment venues, their major customers, has fallen, so orders for decorations have fallen as well, she said.

This year sales are worse than last year. Wuhan, the city that suffered from the pandemic in China, closed just two days before the 2020 Lunar New Year. By then most of the Year of the Rat items had already been sold.

But last week, a few customers came in after a brief virus crisis in Wuhan earlier this month kept people at home.

“If the epidemic remains stable and the weather is good, I think they will all be sold out in the last 10 days or more,” Wang said.

Business wasn’t all she thought about. The Lunar New Year is when families reunite. For many migrant workers, leaving their hometown for higher paying jobs, it is their only trip back each year.

Wang wondered if her 26-year-old daughter, who works in neighboring Hunan province, will miss New Year’s Eve at home for the second year in a row.

The government has not banned vacation travel, but strongly discourages it. Many cities require multiple negative COVID test results for outside people both before and after their arrival.

“She wants to come back,” Wang said. “She will come back if the government does not introduce stricter measures.”

Travel by car, plane and train appears to have fallen about 75% in the first three days of the holiday travel period, which began on Thursday, according to the Department of Transportation and state media. The ministry has predicted that travel will drop by 40% over the 40-day period from 2019.

Economic forecasters say the overall impact may be limited, as factories, shops, and farms may continue to operate instead of closing for a week or more, as they usually do during the holidays.

As dusk fell in Wuhan, the Lunar New Year vendors began hauling in their wares, plucking giant lanterns one by one from outdoor racks, and carrying boxes full of toy oxen. Wang’s son and cousin helped pack her shop.

Any ox-themed items that aren’t sold are likely to be written off and thrown away. In the Chinese zodiac, an animal occurs only once every 12 years.

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Beijing Associated Press writer Joe McDonald contributed to this report.