Chinese cities ease coronavirus measures after angry protests

Shops are reopening and demands for PCR tests are decreasing as well as in more and more Chinese cities, including the Beijing and Shanghaihealth authorities are easing health measures to contain COVID-19, a week after protests of unprecedented magnitude.

In the Chinese capital of 22 million people, many shops reopened already over the weekend and today residents were able to use public transport again without having to show a negative 48-hour molecular test.

The same in Shanghai, where the obligation to show a negative molecular test was also introduced in order to be able to access certain public places (parks, tourist attractions, etc.).

China’s financial metropolis of 25 million people was put under strict lockdown for more than two months in the spring after an outbreak emerged, a move that was widely unpopular and also affected the country’s economy.

A health certificate is still required in many places, however, and travel remains difficult between provinces, with travelers still facing the possibility of having to stay in their place of residence if an outbreak is identified.

A week ago, anger that had been building for months against the strict “zero COVID” policy erupted, and about 10 Chinese cities saw protests of a scale not seen since the pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

“Flexibility”

The zero-tolerance policy on COVID-19 that had been in place for nearly three years had disrupted the daily lives of Chinese residents, with repeated quarantines and large-scale molecular testing almost daily throughout 2022.

These protests, mainly by students, quickly turned political, with some calling for the resignation of President Xi Jinping.

In response, the authorities have since begun to ease restrictions while the decision was applauded by the World Health Organization (WHO).

The Chinese president himself acknowledged that the Omicron strain of the new coronavirus, which is less lethal, “paves the way for more flexibility in restrictions,” according to his remarks to European Council President Charles Michel, who visited Beijing on last week, which were carried by a European official.

The tone of the official press, which previously did not stop insisting on the dangerousness of COVID-19, has also changed.

The Chinese financial media Yicai quoted a health expert yesterday as underlining that “the majority of those infected are asymptomatic (…) and the mortality rate is very low”.

Slow economic growth

The National Health Commission (NHC), a ministry equivalent, classifies COVID-19 as Category A, the most dangerous, which allows local authorities to impose lockdowns and isolate citizens in quarantine centers.

This approach “is no longer in line with what science says,” the expert ruled, calling for the COVID-19 category to be “dropped.”

But with China’s economy expected to record one of its worst growth rates in four decades this year, exiting the “zero COVID-19” policy is a delicate business.

“Finding a balance between COVID-19 control measures and economic growth has again become a central issue,” according to economist Wang Jhe, who was commenting on the poor performance of the services sector today.

“The central government has recently issued clear requirements on how to further improve (health policy). However, how or not local authorities implement these guidelines will be crucial,” he noted.

Near Shanghai, the city of Hangzhou announced it was ending large-scale PCR testing — which had been the norm in the region — except for those in contact with nursing homes, schools and nurseries.

Chambers were stripped

In Urumqi, the capital of northwest China’s Xinjiang province – where a deadly apartment building fire sparked nationwide protests as health restrictions were blamed for hampering rescue efforts – supermarkets, hotels, restaurants and shops reopened today. ski resorts.

In central China’s Wuhan, where the first cases of the new coronavirus were detected in December 2019, and in eastern China’s Shandong province, public transport also stopped requiring passengers to have a negative PCR test.

In Zhengzhou, central China, authorities have lifted the test requirement for access to public spaces and public transport, as well as residential buildings.

However, despite the fact that many testing rooms for the novel coronavirus have been cleared in recent days, long queues were visible over the weekend at those still in place, mainly in Beijing and Shenzhen in southern China, as tests are still necessary almost everywhere.

“Students can’t go to school without a 24-hour negative test,” a netizen wrote on Weibo, a Chinese Twitter-like medium.

“Therefore why close testing booths without removing all testing requirements everywhere?” he asked.

The number of cases decreased today to 29,724, most of them asymptomatic, which is very low compared to the Chinese population (1.4 billion).

RES-EMP

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