SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Residents of Beijing welcomed the relaxation of anti-COVID 19 measures on Saturday, while the city of Shenzhen announced that it would no longer require testing for people using public transport, latest signs as of an adjustment to China’s “zero Covid” policy after violent protests.
Although the number of cases is almost at its highest level since the start of the pandemic three years ago, the Chinese authorities have been forced to review their policy of systematic testing and containment, which is weighing on the economy in addition. to cause growing discontent.
In the south of the country, the municipality of Shenzhen has announced that it will no longer require a negative test to access public transport or parks, following the example of cities such as Chengdu and Tianjin.
Many mobile test centers have been closed in Beijing, as these are no longer required to go to certain stores such as supermarkets and, from Monday, to take the subway. A negative test is still required to go to the office.
While some Beijingers have rejoiced on social media at the gradual disappearance of the tents in which the tests are carried out, others complain that the remaining centers are being taken over by people who still need them, with queues of many hours.
Pride of President Xi Jinping, the policy of “zero Covid” has reached its limits against a backdrop of a sharp economic slowdown and the impatience of the population while the rest of the world has more or less become accustomed to living with the virus.
Without officially renouncing it, the authorities have begun to relax this policy in recent weeks after demonstrations unprecedented since the rise to power of Xi Jinping in 2012, and perhaps even since the uprising in Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989, suppressed in blood.
The security forces were still very visible on Saturday in certain districts of Beijing and Shanghai to prevent any further demonstrations.
The government should soon announce new measures to relax the testing policy, and allow positive people and contact cases to isolate themselves at home under certain conditions, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters this week.
European officials said Thursday after a meeting with Xi Jinping that the Chinese president had told them that the Omicron variant, now the majority in China, allowed such a relaxation.
(Report by Brenda Goh, with Liz Lee and Martin Pollard in Beijing and Engen Tham in Shanghai, French version Tangi Salaün)