China relaxes some zero-Covid restrictions

China has loosened some of its “zero-Covid” restrictions despite rising cases after President Xi Jinping took the unusual step of acknowledging public discontent with the country’s strict lockdown measures.

China, where Covid-19 originated, is easing “some of the world’s most stringent anti-virus controls”, ITV News reported, allowing commuters in Beijing and at least 16 other cities to board buses and trains without having had a virus test in the previous 48 hours for the first time in months.

Industrial centres including Guangzhou, near Hong Kong, have effectively reopened for business and last week the government announced plans to finally vaccinate the elderly.

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It comes after anger at the government’s strict “zero-Covid” strategy, which has confined millions of people to their homes on-and-off over the past three years, finally erupted last week, leading to clashes between protesters and police and even calls for President Xi to resign – something almost unheard of in China.

The hardline approach taken by Xi, involving mass testing, city-wide lockdowns and mandatory quarantine measures, has kept deaths to fewer than 6,000 according to official figures, but has also severely disrupted the freedom of China’s citizens and battered the economy.

The Financial Times reported that Xi “appears to be steering the policy shift” after he acknowledged the protests during a meeting with European officials last Thursday.

The relaxing of some restrictions is “building expectations that Beijing could ditch the pandemic policy that has kept the country isolated for nearly three years and battered the economy”, said the paper.

However, China remains “at particular risk because it has relatively low vaccination rates among the elderly, and a lack of herd immunity”, said The Telegraph.

The paper reported that Xi has refused to use Western vaccines despite warnings that “two million people could die in China if he ditches the country’s hardline zero-Covid policy”.

Covid has spooked the Communist Party leadership because it is the “one thing which the Party cannot command”, said The Spectator. After three years, “many people have had enough of restrictions”, added the magazine. They “rightly blame Party officials for the harshness and suffering under lockdown”, and in the battle “between surveillance and repression versus the internet and telecommunications, they have had a small, if temporary, victory”.