Beijing softens Covid-19 curbs after nationwide protests
China is softening its tone on the severity of Covid-19 and easing some coronavirus curbs even as its daily case toll hovers near record highs, after anger over the world’s toughest rules fuelled protests across the country.
Several cities in the world’s second-largest economy, while still reporting new infections, are breaking with practice by lifting district lockdowns and allowing businesses to reopen.
Health authorities announcing the relaxation of measures did not mention the protests, ranging from candlelit vigils in Beijing to clashes with the police on the streets of Guangzhou on Tuesday and at an iPhone factory in Zhengzhou last week.
The demonstrations marked the biggest show of civil disobedience in mainland China since President Xi Jinping took power a decade ago and come as the economy is set to enter a new era of much slower growth.
Despite near-record case figures, vice-premier Sun Chunlan, who oversees Covid-19 efforts, said the virus’s ability to cause disease is weakening, state media reported.
“The country is facing a new situation and new tasks in epidemic prevention and control as the pathogenicity of the Omicron virus weakens, more people are vaccinated and experience in containing the virus is accumulated,” Sun said.
He urged further “optimisation” of testing, treatment and quarantine policies.
Mention of weakening pathogenicity contrasts with earlier messages from authorities about the deadliness of the virus.
Less than 24 hours after violent protests in Guangzhou, authorities in at least seven districts of the sprawling manufacturing hub north of Hong Kong said they were lifting temporary lockdowns. One district said it would allow in-person classes in schools to resume and would reopen restaurants and other businesses including cinemas.
A community of thousands in east Beijing is allowing infected people with mild symptoms to isolate at home, according to new rules issued by the neighbourhood committee.
Neighbours on the same floor and three stories above and below the home of a positive case should also quarantine at home, a member said.
That is a far cry from quarantine protocols earlier in the year when entire communities were locked down, sometimes for weeks, after even just one positive case was found.
Another community nearby is holding an online poll this week on the possibility of positive cases isolating at home, residents said.
“I certainly welcome the decision by our residential community to run this vote regardless of the outcome,” said resident Tom Simpson, MD for China at the China-Britain Business Council (CBBC).
His main concern is being forced to go into a quarantine facility, where “conditions can be grim, to say the least”.
Prominent nationalist commentator Hu Xijin said in a social media post on Wednesday many asymptomatic coronavirus carriers in Beijing were already quarantining at home.
The southwestern city of Chongqing will allow close contacts of people with Covid-19, who meet certain conditions, to quarantine at home, and in central China Zhengzhou announced the “orderly” resumption of business, including supermarkets, gyms and restaurants.
National health officials said this week authorities would respond to “urgent concerns” raised by the public and that Covid-19 rules should be implemented more flexibly, according to a region’s conditions.
Expectations have grown around the world that China, while still trying to contain infections, could look to reopen at some point next year once it achieves better vaccination rates among its elderly.