The easing of the world’s strictest restrictions on COVID-19 sowed confusion in China on Monday, raising hopes for greater clarity on the matter as authorities are changing the tone on the dangers posed by the coronavirus in the wake of unprecedented protests last month.
Three years into the pandemic, China’s zero-tolerance measures, from closing its borders to stifling lockdowns, stand in stark contrast to the rest of the world, which has largely opened up in its efforts to live with the virus. .
The strict policy has taken a toll on the world’s second-largest economy, affecting the mental health of hundreds of millions of people, and last month sparked the biggest outpouring of public discontent in mainland China since President Xi Jinping took power in 2012.
Although the protests largely dissipated in the face of heavy police presence in major cities, in the aftermath of them many regional authorities have announced some relaxations of lockdowns, quarantine rules and testing requirements.
Daily records of new COVID infections have also decreased in some regions, as the number of tests is reduced.
“Information at this stage will be a bit chaotic,” columnist Hu Xijin, former editor-in-chief of the state-controlled tabloid Global Times, said on Twitter-like microblog Weibo on Sunday, noting the risk that fewer testing could skew infection numbers.
China is about to announce an easing of testing requirements across the country, as well as allowing positive cases and close contacts to isolate at home under certain conditions, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters last week. .
But until then, the lack of clarity has caused some to fear getting caught on the wrong end of the shifting rules.
Along with the relaxation of local restrictions, Vice Premier Sun Chunlan, who oversees COVID efforts, said last week that the virus’s ability to cause serious illness was weakening.
This change in message is consistent with the position taken by many health authorities around the world for more than a year.
As the virus weakens, conditions are improving for China to scale back its handling of COVID-19 as a serious contagious disease, state media Yicai said late on Sunday, in one of the first comments expressing the idea.
Since January 2020, China has classified COVID-19 as a category B infectious disease, but has managed it under category A protocols, giving authorities the power to place patients and their close contacts in quarantine regions. and confinement.
In recent days, China’s major cities have continued to ease the most severe measures.
The capital, Beijing, has abolished testing for public transportation, but entry to many office buildings still requires negative tests, confusing workers.
The removal of the negative test rule to buy cold and fever medicines in several cities, a move aimed at discouraging people from using the medicines to disguise symptoms, has led to mass buying, according to some state media.
JUST ANGRY
Although the heat of last week’s protests appears to have subsided as many wait for the future of COVID management to become clearer, there remain some instances of continued frustration.
In the central city of Wuhan, where the virus first emerged in late 2019, people confined to a garment industrial facility broke the COVID quarantine on Saturday by pushing through the barriers, videos posted on Twitter showed.
Reuters was able to verify that the incident occurred in Wuhan.
On Sunday, drenched in rain, dozens of students gathered at a city university to protest COVID policies, according to videos widely shared on Twitter.
The students, who carried umbrellas, chanted asking for “transparency” in the information on the part of those responsible for the university, according to the images.