In the past decade, Wang Yunxia, 30, spent her adult life largely on a factory floor in southern Guangdong, far away from her daughter in central China, and even farther away from her husband in Beijing, where he was also a migrant worker.

The family would gather once a year to celebrate Lunar New Year, whether at their village in the province of Hubei, or elsewhere.

"It doesn't matter where," Wang said quietly. "When we're together, we're family, we're home."

This year, for the first time, Wang is spending the Spring Festival away from her daughter, now nine, as the couple heed China's call to its migrant workers - a few hundred million strong - to stay put, following a spate of coronavirus infections over the winter.