Virus fears spur Lunar New Year lily salesBy Chen Kuan-pei and Kayleigh Madjar / Staff reporter, with staff writerFragrant lilies usually sell well over the Lunar New Year holiday for their symbolic connotations, but have been in especially high demand this year for a surprising reason — to test for COVID-19, flower vendors said on Saturday. This week, new year lilies fetched about NT$200 for a bouquet of cut flowers and NT$200 to NT$260 for a 5cm planter. The price has not changed much from previous years, yet they have been selling far better, vendors at Changhua County’s Tianwei Highway Garden said. Since one of the telltale symptoms is loss of smell, some have been buying fragrant flowers as a COVID-19 test, Hsu said. In a regular year, Hsu said that he sells 1,000 to 2,000 planters daily over the Lunar New year holiday season.

Source: Taipei Times February 07, 2021 15:56 UTC