But while the holiday may be a chance for some to make up for lost time away from home, Zhang has no big plans or expectations.

“After one month working at home I imagined having a holiday at the beach. Later, I just wished for a hotpot dinner at a restaurant or to get a drink at a bar,” he said.

“But as time passes by, I feel less and less like going out, spending money or doing anything.

“For the upcoming holiday, I guess I will just do fatherly duty and take the kids out to a park and then throw myself into bed and think of nothing.”

China merged the one-day statutory holiday of May 1 with three days to make it a four-day holiday last year. This year, the break has been extended to five days to boost consumption.

As the coronavirus has subsided across much of the country, many local governments have reopened parks and sports venues and announced plans to give out vouchers for use in shopping malls. The Ministry of Commerce has also announced that there will be an online shopping festival from April 28 to May 10 to revive the beleaguered retail sector.

Hu Xingdou, an independent political economist, said China could expect some uptick in spending over the break but it might not be lasting.

“There’ll be some consumption rebound as people get time to relax during the holiday. But I doubt the measures will work well,” Hu said.

“People have been living in an austere environment for months, with their activities monitored, watched, and mobility restricted.

“With [psychological] depression taking hold and governments still trying to strike a balance between pursuing economic growth and maintaining social distancing measures to prevent the spread of the pandemic, the rebound in consumption will be limited,” Hu said.

Psychologists said the physical distancing measures and their influence on consumers were expected to temper the impulse to splurge during the holiday.

Li Tingya, a psychologist in Shanghai who has been volunteering her services to counsel people since the coronavirus erupted in January, said people were still in the process of getting back to their normal life.

“Some people are reluctant to go out fearing they might meet a virus carrier with no symptoms. Some just don’t feel like saying or doing anything after living alone for a long period,” Li said. “It’ll take time for them to pick up where they left off.”

Before the coronavirus outbreak, Chinese consumers were among the biggest spenders on the world’s most expensive houses, yachts, jewellery and overseas trips, thanks to China’s decades of robust economic growth.

Yu Lingna, a Chinese psychologist based in Tokyo, said the pandemic social distancing measures had probably brought competitive consumption to a halt.

“In the past, the mentality of keeping up with trends, leading fashion and showing off was an important factor behind the extravagant spending by Chinese consumers,” Yu said. “Social distancing will weaken this motivation for the short term.”

But China is unlikely to follow Japan and become a “low-desire society” where uncertainty about the future suppresses consumption in the long term. The urge to spend could return one or two years after people put the slump and social distancing behind them, according to the psychologist.

“There are economic reasons for the low-desire society in Japan … The pandemic alone will not plunge China into a low-desire society. Whether consumption will be sluggish for a long time depends on China’s economic prospects,” Yu said.

Many economists are not optimistic. As the pandemic took hold, China’s retail sales contracted 18.9 per cent in the first quarter, official data showed. Per capita disposable income fell 3.9 per cent in the first three months of this year, underscoring the bleak outlook for growth in private consumption.

“The anticipation of a sharp fall in income and more hardship ahead means consumption will likely be crowded out even more this year,” Julia Wang, senior economist with HSBC, wrote in a note earlier this month.

“The impact will likely be broad-based.

“On average, food, clothing and education have the lowest sensitivity to income change and hence are more resilient. Others, such as travel, telecom, and durable goods, are more discretionary, and may lose out more.”

Zhang, the business analyst, said he was negotiating a pay cut with his domestic helper after hearing rumours that both his company and his wife’s were likely to announce lay-offs soon.

“I’m not in the mood to think about consumption,” he said. “It’s a time of turbulence.”