Businesses reopened and coronavirus testing requirements were eased on Monday in Beijing and other cities as China began to gradually relax a strict zero-Covid policy, the source of a wave of protests across the country.
Local authorities across China began a slow retreat from restrictions in place for the past few years, spurred by government orders to adopt new ways to combat the coronavirus.
In the capital Beijing, where many businesses are fully open, a negative virus test taken within the last 48 hours is no longer required to board public transport.
In Shanghai, the country’s financial hub, which endured a two-month lockdown this year, residents were able to return to open spaces like parks and tourist sites without the need for a recent test.
Neighboring Hangzhou went further, abolishing mass testing for its 10 million people, except for those who visit or live in nursing homes, schools and kindergartens.
In the northwestern city of Urumqi, where a fire that killed 10 people catalyzed the wave of protests against the lockdowns, supermarkets, hotels, restaurants and ski resorts reopened on Monday.
The city of more than four million people in the Xinjiang region faced one of the longest lockdowns in China, with some parts closed from August to November.
Authorities in Wuhan, where the coronavirus was first detected in 2019, and in Shandong on Sunday lifted the testing requirement for using public transportation.
And Zhengzhou, home to the world’s largest iPhone factory, announced on Sunday that people will be able to access public places, take public transportation and enter residential buildings without requiring a 48-hour Covid test.
– lower the tone –
The Chinese state press, which had focused on highlighting the dangers of the covid, now changed its tone in light of the relief of the measures.
The Yicai business media quoted an unnamed health expert on Sunday as arguing that strict sanitary rules should be toned down.
“Most of those infected are asymptomatic (…) and mortality is very low,” said the expert.
The Chinese National Health Commission (NHC) establishes categories of diseases according to their mortality and contagiousness.
Since January 2020, it has kept covid under category A protocols, which give local governments the power to impose lockdowns and quarantine infected people.
The Ycai expert ruled out that this approach “is clearly not in line with science,” given the changing circumstances.
The World Health Organization commemorated the relaxation of China’s zero covid policy, after hundreds of people took to the streets in several cities to demand greater political freedoms and an end to confinement.
But while some rules have been relaxed, the Chinese security apparatus has quickly prevented more protests, with more internet censorship and more surveillance of the population.
Although some testing centers have been dismantled, long lines have formed in front of those that remain, forcing villagers to wait in the winter cold for the Covid tests that remain mandatory in much of China.
“Students cannot go to class without a 24-hour negative test,” wrote a user on the Weibo social network.
“Why close test centers before completely removing the requirement to show test results?” asked another user.
China reported 29,724 new local covid-19 infections on Monday.