HO CHI MINH CITY/HONG KONG/TAIPEI -- China and Vietnam are urging millions of workers to forgo trips home during the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday due to fears mass travel will spark COVID-19 outbreaks and shutter factories in two of the world's key manufacturing powerhouses.
The Spring Festival, as it is also known, has been called the biggest annual human migration season, with workers in China making more than a billion trips in normal years. While the scale is smaller in Vietnam, where the holiday is known as Tet, the rush is no less disruptive. Each year, thousands of workers who go home for the break fail to come back once it is over.
