China is abandoning its tough approach to tackling the coronavirus after historic angry protests across the country. While the daily life of hundreds of millions of Chinese continues to be marked by health constraints, China announced on Wednesday December 7 a general relaxation of health rules against Covid, authorizing certain positive cases to quarantine at home.
According to the new instructions unveiled by the National Health Commission (NHC) – which has the value of a ministry –, “asymptomatic infected people and mild cases that can be isolated at home generally will be”. This is a dramatic change from the norm that has been in place for almost three years, which required that any positive case be taken to a quarantine centre.
Moreover, the country will “further reduce the scope of nucleic acid testing and reduce its frequency”, while he had previously asked residents to test themselves several times a week to be able to access any public place. Wednesday’s announcement also includes limiting the scope of the lockdown to affected apartment floors and individual buildings, rather than neighborhoods.
Relief from PCR tests
Another novelty: it will now be possible to travel from one Chinese province to another without having to present a negative PCR test of less than forty-eight hours, and no test will also be required on arrival.
The announcement comes a few hours after the official publication of new worrying figures for the world’s second largest economy: in November, China saw its exports and imports collapse, under the combined effect of its zero Covid policy and a demand sluggish.
This national easing of restrictions, which follows relaxations announced in recent days by several Chinese cities and provinces, is also decreed ten days after a wave of demonstrations. In a dozen cities in the country, the demonstrators, mostly young, had shouted their weariness of the harsh health policy, some even demanding the departure of the president, Xi Jinping.