Footage from Huangshan Mountain Park in Anhui Province on April 4 showed thousands of people jostling to get some fresh air after months of travel restrictions and strict lockdown measures.
Image recorded at Hoang Son Park on April 4
At 7:48 a.m., authorities announced that the park had reached 20,000 people/day and immediately decided to stop accepting more visitors to prevent possible risks.
Meanwhile, Shanghai has also seen a huge influx of people returning to the city after weeks of relative quiet. Shopping and travel have begun to pick up, and many restaurants in the city that were closed just days ago appear to be opening, albeit with restrictions on the number of customers.
Similar situations were also seen in the capital Beijing as locals flocked to the city's parks and public areas. These crowded situations were caused by the Qingming Festival in China, a day considered the first day of spring to pay respect to ancestors and welcome the new spring.
And this is also when normal activities suddenly returned after more than three months since Covid-19 was first detected in Wuhan. The epidemic has so far infected nearly 1.3 million people and killed more than 70,000. At its peak, China recorded thousands of new infections every day. However, the rate of infection in China has slowed significantly over the past month. China has now recorded more than 82,000 infections and more than 3,300 deaths.
Activities in the markets are also crowded again.
With the epidemic situation in China initially under control, the government has gradually relaxed travel restrictions and lifted the lockdown, but Chinese health experts have urged the public to continue to take precautions. Zeng Guang, an epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, still affirmed: "The epidemic has not completely ended in China."
After images of crowds at Mount Huangshan appeared on social media, People's Daily, the mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party, issued a stern warning to tourists: "Don't gather!"
In a commentary in People's Daily, the author said it was understandable that people wanted to go out after being quarantined, but now was not the time to let down their guard: "If asymptomatic cases appear in large-scale gatherings, the consequences will be very serious!"
