This year, the Qingming Festival fell on Sunday April 4. It is an important date in the traditional Chinese lunar New Year calendar as that is when millions travel to tend to the graves of their ancestors and family members, offering flowers and burning incense.
Xiaoxiang Morning News, an influential local newspaper in Hunan province, reported that 320,000 people packed the mausoleums and grave yards in Wuhan city on the eve of the Qingming Festival. The report also said that in order to buy a bunch of chrysanthemum, a traditional funeral flower, Wuhanese came out early in the morning and waited in long lines, even though there was a short of supply and the price was high. With too many people buying the flower, Wuhan ran out of chrysanthemum. When a Chinese writer Yan Xiaoyi shared the story on her social media account, someone reported her and her account was banned.
According to official figures, as of April 16 last year, the number of deaths from the Corona virus in China was 3,869; Wuhan accounted for nearly two-thirds of the total number of infections and more than three-quarters of the deaths.
The Civil Affairs Office of the Hubei province government released the information that, in the first quarter of last year, more than 150,000 seniors in the province suddenly disappeared from the list of benefit recipients. The authorities refused to offer an explanation, and forbade the media or individuals from collecting statistics on funeral related information.
Source: Radio Free Asia, April 5, 2021
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/tomb-04052021042615.html