After a week of protest, China progressively eases COVID restrictions

BEIJING: Following huge protests across the nation, several communities in Chinese cities where COVID-19 is still circulating are relaxing testing standards and quarantine laws.

Despite the fact that the number of infections nationally is still very close to record highs, sources informed Reuters that China is about to announce a relaxation of its COVID quarantine regulations as well as a decrease in mass testing.

This week, some cities removed certain district lockdowns after Vice Premier Sun Chunlan, who is in charge of COVID activities, stated that the virus’s capacity to spread sickness was waning.

The new statement is consistent with what health officials across the world have been saying for more than a year, but it stands in stark contrast to China’s ongoing warnings about how deadly the illness was during the outbreak.

The change in policy comes after unheard-of demonstrations in mainland China after President Xi Jinping took office in 2012 were sparked by resentment over the strictest limitations in the world.

The COVID regulations in China have had a substantial negative impact on the country’s economy, severely stressing hundreds of millions of people, and strangling everything from local consumption to industry output to global supply networks.