BEIJING, Dec 7 (Reuters) – China on Wednesday announced the most sweeping changes to its anti-COVID regime since the pandemic began three years ago, easing rules that curbed the spread of the virus but had hampered the world’s second largest economy and sparked protests.
The easing of rules, which include allowing infected people with mild or no symptoms to self-quarantine at home and dropping testing for people traveling within the country, are the strongest signs to come. this day that Beijing prepares its people to live with the disease.
Many of the changes announced by the National Health Commission (NHC) mirrored actions already taken in various cities and regions in recent days, following protests against COVID checks which were the largest show of public discontent since the President Xi Jinping came to power in 2012.
Even still, citizens cheered the prospect of change that could see China slowly emerge into a world three years after the virus erupted in the central city of Wuhan in late 2019.
Wednesday’s announcement quickly rose to the top of the most-viewed topics on China’s Weibo platform, with many hoping for a return to normalcy after a series of weeks of lockdown that left dozens of people with mental suffering. millions of people.
“It’s time for our lives to return to normal and for China to return to the world,” one Weibo user wrote.
Some investors also hailed the change that could reinvigorate China’s flagging economy and currency and support global growth.
“This policy change is a big step forward,” said Zhiwei Zhang, chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management. “I expect China to fully reopen its border no later than mid-2023.”
Foreign businesses in China are also hoping the changes could mark a shift to wider openness and an easing of travel restrictions.
“We need the business environment here to return to a level of predictability that allows businesses to resume normal operations,” Colm Rafferty, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, said in a statement.
But NHC spokesperson Mi Feng told a news conference that any changes to the travel measures would be “gradual”.
PROTESTS AND FEAR
The shift in policy came after President Xi Jinping, who considers China’s relentless fight against COVID one of his main achievements, chaired a meeting of the Communist Party’s Politburo on Tuesday.
Some analysts seized on a report on the meeting from the official Xinhua news agency that made no mention of the “dynamic zero-COVID” policy, although it was not clear whether this was the signal of a fundamental change of position.
Major cities in China, including Beijing and Shanghai, were plagued by protests last month, which began to fizzle out amid a heavy police presence and the lifting of various restrictions in different parts of the country.
Officials did not link any of the changes, made Wednesday or earlier, to the protests.
But they softened their tone on the health risks of the virus – bringing China closer to what other countries have been saying for more than a year as they drop restrictions and turn to living with the virus.
The looser approach has sparked a rush for cough and fever medicine as some residents, especially unvaccinated older people, feel more vulnerable to a virus that has been largely brought under control by Beijing’s tough policy.
China’s current tally of 5,235 COVID-related deaths is a tiny fraction of its population of 1.4 billion, and extremely low by global standards.
“Please buy rationally, buy on demand, and don’t store blindly,” the Beijing Municipal Food and Drug Administration said in the state-owned Beijing Evening News.
In Beijing’s upscale Chaoyang district, which is home to most foreign embassies as well as entertainment venues and corporate headquarters, stores were quickly running out of some of these drugs, residents said.
Rising demand has boosted the stock prices of drug makers, including cough syrup producer Guizhou Bailing (002424.SZ) and Xinhua Pharmaceutical (000756.SZ), which makes 40% of all the ibuprofen sold in China.
The Chinese yuan has seen a recent resurgence against the dollar, supported by the prospect that the government will relax its “zero-COVID” policy.
But the currency remains on its worst year since China unified official and market exchange rates in 1994, as its economy was battered by COVID restrictions.
Further proof of this, China’s exports and imports fell at a much faster pace than expected in November, according to data from Wednesday.
Reporting by Brenda Goh in Shanghai and Martin Quin Pollard, Sophie Yu, Ryan Woo, Bernard Orr and the Beijing newsroom; Written by John Geddie; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore
Our standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
