Spring events around Detroit

Millions of Chinese are taking advantage of the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions to make an emotional journey back to their families for Lunar New Year holidays.

China is ringing in the Lunar New Year despite pandemic restrictions, as people gathered at temples to offer traditional prayers for the Year of the Tiger.

(AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)BEIJING – China is encouraging tens of millions of migrant workers not to travel home during next February’s Lunar New Year holiday to prevent further spread of the coronavirus, disrupting its most important time for family gatherings. The commission said it is encouraging provincial governments to persuade workers to follow the suggestion while taking into account their personal wishes. China has all but eradicated local transmission of the coronavirus, but authorities remain on high alert over a possible resurgence. Over the roughly six-week travel period, Chinese can take upward of 3 billion trips. Along with discouraging travel, Chinese authorities are also carrying out a campaign to vaccinate 50 million people before the Lunar New Year holiday.

The Wuhan Municipal Health Commission said seven other people were in critical condition among a total of 41 who were suffering from pneumonia caused by a "preliminarily determined new type of coronavirus” as of Friday. The patient who died was identified as a 61-year-old man who had been hospitalized after suffering shortness of breath and severe pneumonia. Possible cases of the same illness have been reported in Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan involving recent travelers to Wuhan. Health authorities elsewhere in China have yet to announce similar cases, despite the high population density around Wuhan and its role as a travel hub for central China. "So we have to take every measure and closely monitor the situation,” Yuen said, according to Radio Television Hong Kong.