Lunar New Year in the age of Covid-19

Midori Nguyen, 5 wears a dragon dance costume while looking over li xi or ang pow packets at the Asian Garden Mall in Little Saigon. — Los Angeles Times/TNS

AS he entered Hong Kong Supermarket, Sam Lin scanned text messages from his wife instructing him how many red envelopes to buy.

Three dozen, she wrote — and make them large, to fit checks rather than folded wads of cash.