BEIJING — Businesses reopened and testing
requirements were relaxed in
Beijing and other Chinese cities on Monday as the
country tentatively eases out of a strict zero-COVID policy that sparked
nationwide protests.
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Local authorities across China have begun a slow
rollback of the restrictions that have governed daily life for years,
encouraged by the central government’s orders for a new approach to fighting
the coronavirus.
In the capital Beijing, where many businesses have
fully reopened, commuters from Monday were no longer required to show a
negative virus test taken within 48 hours to use public transport.
Financial hub Shanghai — which underwent a brutal
two-month lockdown this year — extended this measure to most public places
except medical institutions, schools, restaurants and bars, nursing homes, and
indoor entertainment venues, starting from Tuesday.
The city had already exempted parks and tourist
attractions from the testing requirement a day earlier and what the latest rule
change encompassed was unclear.
Neighboring Hangzhou ended regular mass testing for
its 10 million people, except those living in or visiting nursing homes,
schools and kindergartens.
The testing requirement for public transport had
been scrapped on Sunday in the central city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus was
first detected in late 2019, as well as in Shandong province.
And Zhengzhou — home to the world’s largest
iPhone factory — on Sunday said people would be allowed to enter public places, take
public transport and enter their residential compounds without a 48-hour
negative test result too.
But as officials have dismantled testing facilities,
long queues have appeared around those that remain, forcing residents to wait
in cold temperatures to get tests that remain obligatory across much of China.
“Students can’t go to school without a 24-hour
negative test,” wrote a user on China’s Twitter-like Weibo.
“What’s the point in closing testing booths before
dropping the need to show test results completely?” another asked.
In the northwestern city of Urumqi, where a fire
that killed 10 people became the catalyst for the recent anti-lockdown
protests, supermarkets, hotels, restaurants and ski resorts reopened on Monday.
The city of more than four million in the far-western
Xinjiang region endured one of China’s longest lockdowns, with some areas shut
from August until November.
Student protests
The demonstrations last week
were the largest in decades as public anger at prolonged virus restrictions
boiled over, with many university campuses involved.
China’s vast security apparatus has moved swiftly to
smother the rallies, deploying a heavy police presence while boosting online
censorship and surveillance of the population.
But sporadic localized clashes have continued to flare
up.
Hundreds of students at Wuhan University in central
China staged a protest Sunday evening, according to footage on social media and
an attendee.
At least 300 protested in front of the university’s
main administrative building, but there was no violence, only students chanting
slogans together, an anonymous witness told AFP.
Students were unhappy with the university’s
examination arrangements and school holiday dates, he said.
The university announced Sunday that it would
gradually resume in-person teaching and “optimize campus epidemic control
measures” from Monday, but students and staff could not leave campus without
approval.
Dialing it down
Chinese state media, which
previously focused on highlighting the dangers of COVID-19, has shifted tone as
measures have been relaxed.
Authoritative business news outlet Yicai on Sunday
quoted an unnamed health expert arguing that officials should dial down strict
virus rules.
“Most infected people are asymptomatic ... and the
fatality rate is very low,” the expert said.
China’s central
National Health Commission
categorizes infectious diseases based on how fatal and infectious they are.
Since January 2020, it has managed COVID under
Category A protocols, giving local governments the power to enforce snap lockdowns
and put patients and their close contacts into quarantine.
That approach was now “obviously not in line with
science” given the changing circumstances, the expert told Yicai, calling for a
“downgrade”.
Chinese authorities on Monday reported 29,724 new
domestic COVID cases.
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