China abruptly did an about-face earlier this month and lifted most of the health restrictions in place for nearly three years, after the first cases of coronavirus appeared in the city of Wuhan (center).
Since the lifting of restrictions, a wave of cases has swept over the country, but the authorities are trying to reassure people about the benign nature of the virus despite its contagiousness.
The municipality-province of Chongqing (southwest), which has more than 30 million inhabitants, is one of the first to authorize the return to work despite symptoms of Covid.
“Asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic patients can go to work normally,” said a notice from local authorities published on Sunday.
The document stipulates that no screening test will no longer be required, with the exception of schools or health establishments.
People line up to buy antigen tests at a pharmacy in Hangzhou, east China's Zhejiang province, on December 19, 2022 © STR / AFP
This is a spectacular reversal of the health strategy of the most populous country on the planet.
In the name of a strict so-called “zero Covid” policy, the Chinese were recently subjected to almost daily screenings and mandatory quarantines in the event of a positive PCR test.
Districts or even entire cities could be confined as soon as a handful of cases were discovered.
The government now encourages the population to isolate themselves at home when symptoms of Covid appear.
At the other end of the country, the province of Zhejiang, bordering Shanghai, has also decided that people with mild symptoms can “continue to work” provided they take “protective measures”.
Experts fear China is ill-equipped to deal with this wave of infections as the country continues to reopen, with millions of vulnerable elderly people yet to be vaccinated.
Beijing and its 22 million inhabitants are particularly affected by this wave of contamination, totally unprecedented in the city since the start of the pandemic and which has spread at lightning speed in recent days.
Retirement homes are now on their own, according to several testimonies collected by AFP.
© 2022 AFP
