Finance
China is relaxing some of the world’s strictest anti-virus controls, and officials claim that new variants are weaker. However, they have not stated when they intend to end a “zero-Covid” strategy that has confined millions of people to their homes and sparked protests and calls for President Xi Jinping’s resignation.
For the first time in months, commuters in Beijing and at least 16 other cities were allowed to board buses and subways without having had a virus test within the previous 48 hours on December 5. Industrial cities, such as Guangzhou, near Hong Kong, have reopened markets and businesses and lifted most restrictions on movement, while remaining strict in infected neighborhoods.
Last week, the government announced plans to vaccinate millions of people in their 70s and 80s as a condition for lifting “zero- COVID” restrictions that keep most visitors out of China and disrupt manufacturing and global trade.
This raised hopes for a swift end to “zero COVID.” However, health experts and economists predict that it will be mid-2023, if not 2024, before vaccination rates are high enough and hospitals are ready to handle a possible outbreak of infections.
“China is not yet ready for a quick reopening,” Morgan Stanley economists said in a report released Monday. “We anticipate lingering containment measures.” In lower-tier cities, restrictions could still tighten dynamically if hospitalizations rise.”
China is the only major country that is still attempting to eradicate transmission, while the United States and others relax restrictions and attempt to live with the virus, which has killed at least 6.6 million people and infected nearly 650 million.
Protests began on November 25 after at least ten people were killed in a fire in an apartment building in Urumqi, China’s northwest. Authorities denied that firefighters or victims were hampered by locked doors or other anti-virus safeguards. However, the disaster became a source of public angst.
The Communist Party promised ahead of the protests that it would make “zero COVID” less expensive and disruptive, but that it would stick to the overall containment strategy.
The party previously announced strategy updates to make it more focused. Authorities began restricting access to infected buildings or neighborhoods rather than entire cities. However, a surge in cases beginning in October prompted local governments across China to close schools and confine families to cramped apartments for weeks at a time.
Authorities say they are “further optimizing” controls and warn that the country must remain vigilant.
According to Sun Chunlan, the deputy premier in charge of the anti-virus campaign, China faces “new situations and tasks” as a result of the “weakening of the pathogenicity” of the latest omicron variant. She claimed that China has “effective diagnosis and treatment” and that more than 90% of its people have been vaccinated.
The ruling party is trying to balance “epidemic prevention, economic stability and security for development,” Sun said Wednesday in a conference with health officials, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
