“Relaxing COVID controls will lead to greater outbreaks,” Neil Thomas and Laura Gloudeman of Eurasia Group said in a report. “But Beijing is unlikely to return to the extended bla…
By Joe McDonald | Associated Press
In other cities, social media users said coworkers or classmates were ill and some businesses had closed due to a lack of staff. It wasn’t clear from those accounts, many of which couldn’t be independently confirmed, how far above the official figure the total case numbers might be. “Relaxing COVID controls will lead to greater outbreaks,” Neil Thomas and Laura Gloudeman of Eurasia Group said in a report. “But Beijing is unlikely to return to the extended blanket lockdowns that crashed the economy earlier this year.”
More changes announced Wednesday allow people with mild COVID-19 cases to isolate at home instead of going to a quarantine center that some complained were crowded and unsanitary. That addressed a major irritant for the public. The requirement for hundreds of millions of people to be tested as often as once a day in some areas over the past two years helped the government spot infections with no symptoms. Ending that approach reduces the cost of monitoring employees and customers at offices, shops and other businesses. But it increases the risk they might spread the virus.
“The re-pivot to growth and the exit from zero COVID are clear from the top level,” said Larry Hu and Yuxiao Zhang of Macquarie Group, an Australian bank, in a report. However, they warned, “uncertainties remain high,” including “how disruptive the exit of zero COVID could be.”
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