WHO ‘pleased’ with China easing curbs
BEIJING: The World Health Organization (WHO) has cheered China’s loosening of its “zero Covid” policy, with cities across the East Asian country making further moves toward unwinding some restrictions after days of unprecedented protests against the measures.
President Xi Jinping suggested that the spread of the less lethal Omicron strain might allow China to pull back from its hardline strategy of lockdowns and mass testing, senior European Union officials reported on Friday.
Discontent with Beijing’s uncompromising coronavirus pandemic response spilled onto streets last weekend and expanded into calls for more political freedom, in widespread demonstrations not seen in decades.
China’s vast security apparatus has moved swiftly to smother the rallies, deploying a heavy police presence while boosting online censorship and population surveillance.
In his first known comments on the protests, Xi told European Council President Charles Michel that the demonstrators were “mainly students or teenagers in university” fed up with Covid-19 restrictions when the pair met in China’s capital Beijing on Thursday, said senior officials who spoke of condition of anonymity.
Xi complained “that, after three years of Covid, he had an issue because people were frustrated,” they said.
They added that Xi had told Michel that, given most cases in China were now of the Omicron variant, that “opens the way for more openness of the restrictions than what we have already seen in some regions.”
The WHO was “pleased to learn that the Chinese authorities are adjusting their current strategies,” balancing control measures with the lives of communities who have “suffered,” Michael Ryan, the United Nations health agency’s emergencies director, told reporters on Friday.
Beijing officials had signaled that a broader relaxation of the zero-Covid policy could be in the works.
Speaking at the National Health Commission on Wednesday, Vice Premier Sun Chunlan said Omicron was weakening and vaccination rates were improving, according to state-run Xinhua News Agency.
A central figure behind Beijing’s pandemic response, Sun said this “new situation” required “new tasks.”
She made no mention of zeroCovid in those remarks or in another meeting on Thursday, suggesting that the approach — which has disrupted the economy and daily life — might soon be relaxed.
Home quarantine?
Several cities have now begun loosening coronavirus restrictions, slowly moving away from daily mass testing and compulsory central quarantine — a tedious mainstay of life under zero-Covid.
But sporadic localized confrontations have continued to flare up.
Social media footage posted on Thursday night and geolocated by Agence France-Presse (AFP) showed dozens of people clashing with health workers in hazmat suits outside a school in the city of Yicheng, in central Hubei province.
The post’s author said the video showed parents of students who had tested positive for the virus and had been taken to quarantine.
Parents are seen kneeling before the school gate, pleading to take their children home. Another video showed at least a dozen police officers at the scene.
But signs have emerged of a possible shift in the policy of sending positive cases to central quarantine facilities.
An analysis by the state-run newspaper People’s Daily on Friday quoted health experts supporting local government moves to allow patients to quarantine at home, which would be a marked departure from current rules.
When called Friday, some officials in Beijing’s Chaoyang district said people who tested positive there would no longer have to go to central quarantine.
Authorities in southern factory hub Dongguan said Thursday that those who meet “specific conditions” should be allowed to isolate at home. They did not specify what those conditions would be.
Shenzhen, a southern tech hub, rolled out a similar policy on Wednesday.
As of Friday, the southwestern metropolis of Chengdu no longer requires a recent negative test result to enter public places or ride the train. Instead, it only demands a green health code on an app confirming people have not traveled to a “high-risk” area.
Beijing also announced on Friday that using city public transport would no longer require a negative polymerase chain reaction test taken within 48 hours.
The day before, capital health authorities called on hospitals not to deny treatment to people without a 48-hour test.