That has meant never ending restrictions, lockdowns and regular state mandated testing and the signs are, this will continue for some time, especially given an upcoming Communist Party congress where President Xi Jinping is expected to assume a historic third term in power.

Authorities want to leave nothing to chance and that is a dampener for many ahead of a week of national holidays that begins on saturday.

Passenger numbers here paint a gloomy picture of domestic travel and this flights headed to one of china's top tourist destinations.

Upon arrival.

The familiar sight of people dressed in Hazmat suits are standing by to swab you.

This is the city of Yanan in Northern Shanxi province.

It's famed for being a war time stronghold for the communists during the chinese civil war and must visit for party faithfuls.

But its status as a red tourism hotspot hasn't shielded it from the effects of COVID-19 travel curbs nan ling Xuan is a folk singer and like many people from yunnan relies on travelers to make ends meet visitors from all over the country have declined.

So our income has also fallen, especially for artists like us.

Life is extremely hard.

Nan says she hopes visitor numbers will pick up over china's national golden week holidays.

It's a peak seven day holiday period marking the founding of modern day china but the pandemic has hit hard over the last few years.

One resident we spoke to called wang Zhi hua said it was impossible not to notice the change.

Three years ago, tons of people would come here from all over the country and even from abroad to see this historic site.

Since the pandemic traffic has decreased dramatically, tourists don't like to wear masks and they don't like the idea of maybe not being able to go home if there's a lockdown ahead of china's twice a decade Communist Party Congress though authorities are tightening restrictions even further.

The country's leadership is set for a shake up and President XI, who is expected to secure a precedent breaking third term, has doubled down on china's zero covid approach to ensure stability.

From lockdowns to constant testing.

There's plenty of fatigue, anger even overcome restrictions, but people don't like to talk about it openly.

Earlier this year, authorities warned they take action against any criticism over the country's covid policies.

Still, there are plenty of signs of people cracking this.

Covid testing booth was spotted recently sprayed with graffiti saying give me freedom or give me death.

In this video circulating chinese social media, a man gets set off when security tell him to mask up while he's sitting alone in his own restaurant, joe Meza is a senior analyst at research firm trivia in china.

People looking for a quick relaxation of Covid curbs after Congress are likely to be disappointed.

The main concern here is about medical resources.

The government is very concerned that if it were to abandon covid zero, you would suddenly have an overwhelming of hospitals not in the medical resources to go around.

What we may see is after she is Firmly ensconced in his third term.

And the political aspect has been squared away.

There may be some additional room for policy experimentation first.

On a small scale and on a larger scale, it couldn't come soon enough.

For places like Yanan nationwide tourism fell by 28% in the first half of this year compared to 2021.

According to China's tourism ministry.

Many people's livelihoods here depend on a turnaround happening sooner rather than later.

Let's get more on this from Poland Wang in East Asia Bureau in Taipei which also reports on China.

Why is China still sticking to its COVID zero approach where nearly every other country has learned to live with the virus?

Well, we can say that the reason why China today is still sticking to its COVID-0 policy.

It's because of the political prestigious because China where the first outbreak was registered has always wanted to show the world that you can control the pandemic better than other countries.

For the chinese governments.

From chinese chinese government's perspective, the zero covid lockdown strategy has been successful by some metrics.

Overall china has been able to keep cases and death low compared with many countries including the US and the chinese government has made that a point of pride but now they're paying the price for the policy.

However, we can also assume that if covid restrictions are loosened, china will you know, see a potential uptick in cases hospital will be flooded with the patients and the whole medical system may face a breakdown and the low vaccination rates among the elderly.

In one medical reason chinese authority used to justify that ongoing disease control measures.

Does this mean that china will continue to stick to this policy even after the Communist Party Congress in mid october so far, we don't see any, you know, concrete timeline for easing Kobe zero policy in china.

However, we do hear people suggest that the government should consider it comprehensively on sunday chinese commentator who she asian say that you know, as china pounded its covid 19 policies epidemic experts need to speak out and the government should conduct comprehensive research and make any study transparent to the public.

He said the government should tell people what are the pros and cons of the policy for ordinary people and for the whole country.

Usually anti government messages on social media platform will be censored.

But this time it didn't and many netizens joined the conversation and hope the government to do something.

So we think under the no the pressure the public from the public chinese government will do something.

What has all this meant for.

There are people in this country.

I mean the COVID-0 policy.

Um So Chinese government explained that because the low rates of vaccination rates of elderly people mostly you know above the age of 60 and because they are not they're more like a conservative conservative group of people.

They don't want to you know get the vaccine and that's why they are the potential threat for the country because if they if they got infected then it will cause the like a breakdown for the medical system.

How is the Covid zero policy impacting people's everyday lives Bowen.

So as we saw that in the report in yunnan with the golden week holiday start starting on october 1st some analysts predict there will be a drop in tourist numbers and it may hurt the tourism industry as well.

However you know like chinese cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing and Xi'an have advised residents to stay put as the coming national holidays.

They use this as approach to reduce the risk of spreading in epidemic and the flame ups across the country.

And experts have also noted that the residential remained cautious as a country still faces pressure to curb the virus and privileged.

We saw a lot of people you know their livelihood has been impacted by the lockdown previously.