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Tens of millions of people will still be travelling daily between now and the beginning of March Image caption: Tens of millions of people will still be travelling daily between now and the beginning of March

In the past 24 hours, China has reported no new domestically-transmitted cases of Covid-19.

This has pretty much been the story for the last week, and Chinese media have been praising these statistics, and thanking groups of people that the government urged shouldn’t travel during the Spring Festival holiday period. In particular, they have praised university students, migrants and overseas Chinese.

In January, there were multiple outbreaks of the virus in the northeast of the country.

And as hundreds of thousands of people traditionally travel across China for the Lunar New Year – which this year fell on 12 February - to spend time with their families, there were government concerns this annual migration might exacerbate the spread of the coronavirus.

Consequently, China’s central government tried to discourage people from travelling this year, and local governments introduced financial incentives for people to stay put.

The government also introduced special measures for those who did still intend to travel, in order to keep them safe. Travellers were instructed to show a negative Covid-19 test within seven days of their journey, and encouraged to self-isolate for 14 days on arrival at their destination.

Tens of millions of people will still be travelling daily between now and the beginning of March, but today is the last public holiday in China, so the majority of people made their return journeys today.