China Rolls Back Draconian Anti-Covid Policy, Limits Lockdowns And Testing Requirements

People will now be able to isolate themselves at home instead of in overcrowded and unsanitary field hospitals.

People wait in a long queue to be tested for Covid-19 coronavirus at an open nucleic acid testing site as many testing stations are shut down in Beijing. ( Image Source :AFP )

New Delhi: China has decided to roll back some of its very stringent anti-Covid measures as it enters its fourth year, according to an Associated Press report. In an announcement on Wednesday, China stated that the scale of the lockdown will be limited to individual apartments, floors and buildings rather than entire districts and neighbourhoods. 

With this, people will now be able to isolate themselves at home instead of in overcrowded and unsanitary field hospitals. The announcement further stated that schools, where there have been no outbreaks, must return to in-class teaching, according to AP.

On Monday, people could commute for the first time on buses and subways without a virus test in the previous 48 hours the first time in months in Beijing and 16 other cities. Industrial centres including Guangzhou near Hong Kong have reopened markets and businesses and lifted most curbs on movement while keeping restrictions on neighbourhoods with infections.

The public's frustration with the "zero-Covid" policy broke out in protests in several cities and demands for the newly re-elected President Xi Jinping's resignation. The draconian policy upended ordinary life, travel and employment which eventually backfired as a huge blow to the national economy.

According to AP, Xi’s government has held up "zero-COVID" as proof of the superiority of China’s system compared with the United States and Western countries. China’s official death toll stands at 5,235 since the start of the pandemic versus a US count of 1.1 million.

The protests broke out after at least ten people were killed in a fire in an apartment building in Urumqi in northwest China. While authorities denied any suggestions that people and firefighters were blocked by locked doors or other anti-virus measures, the incident became a focus of public frustration.

Though China sought to maintain the extreme policy while still trying to keep its economy running, however, the public's frustration swayed the opinion of the authorities who believed their approach was superior to other nations that have opened up in the hopes to try and live with it. 

China also has suffered a possible rise in fatalities among people with cancer, heart disease and other conditions who struggled to get care while hospitals focused on treating virus cases. However, these numbers haven't been reported, according to AP.

(With agency inputs)