Local authorities across China are paring back some Covid-19 control measures, just days after protests against a zero-tolerance approach that has kept the country largely isolated for years
that the recent unrest reflected frustration about Covid controls and suggested the pandemic has entered a less deadly stage, according to European officials familiar with the situation., including Vice Premier Sun Chunlan, who have said the country now faced a new situation in its Covid fight, given that the Omicron variant has caused fewer deaths and less severe sickness.
Some Western officials have credited the recent protests with helping push the Chinese government to ease Covid restrictions. “We have seen the protests die down in China, and the reason they died down is they actually had an effect,” U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said in remarks Friday at American University in Washington.
Residents also no longer have to provide personal information when buying medication for treating certain ailments including fever, cough and sore throat—reversing a policy that has been in place for more than a year, aimed at preventing possible infections from evading authorities. Authorities in Guangdong, a prosperous province of about 125 million people, said they will allow close contacts of positive cases who meet certain criteria to isolate at home, instead of being sent to centralized isolation facilities. Nanning, the capital of the southern region of Guangxi, dropped a requirement for subway commuters to show a negative Covid test result from the preceding 72 hours.
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