2022 Mid-Autumn Festival Passenger Traffic Drops More than 30% in the Communist China

According to the Communist China’s official media, during the three-day Mid-Autumn Festival holiday from Sept. 10th to 12th, there were many places imposing restrictions and controls in the name of the epidemic and demanding people not to return to their hometown in rural areas unless it was in urgent needs.

 It is estimated that more than 70 million passengers had traveled within the country, which is down by 37.7% from the same period of last year. Among them, 1.54 million passengers were traveled by water which is down by 14.9% compared with the same period of last year. 48.18 million passengers were traveled on the roads which is down by 37.1% compared with the same period of last year. In addition, over 1 million passengers were traveled by air and that is down by nearly 59% compared with the same period of last year. Tours in various places were mainly local tours, peripheral tours, or short-distance tours.

 As the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) approaches its 20th National Congress, there are reported outbreaks in many places one after another, and under the strict Zero-COVID policy, control measures such as silence mode, static management, isolation and mandatory PCR testing are implemented. As well as requiring people not to return to their hometowns, and even in some areas, people are required to get pre-authorization for traveling home, otherwise they will be held accountable and litigations. Many areas have also repeatedly extended the control period and upgraded the control measures in order to use administrative orders to fully limit people and to maintain superficial stability.Some netizens inside the Communist China are complaining that it is now like a roulette game every time when leaving home because they will never know who will be next unfortunate person to get isolated and which will be the next city to be shut down.