Great news!! China is relaxing its zero COVID restrictions and announced 10 new measures for dealing with Covid-19 on Wednesday. The new rules will allow people who test positive to quarantine at home if they have mild or no symptoms. Previously, everyone who tested positive in China was sent to a quarantine camp where people often live with no shower, dirty bathrooms and stale food. Now people can stay home if they have a mild case, which is more sensible. The new rules also call for less aggressive PCR test requirements for entering into public areas and allowing citizens to move around freely. Local governments are asked not to lockdown people so aggressively and not to block emergency exits or apartment entrances. Schools without Covid cases must carry out offline learning and keep shared spaces open. Essential services must remain operational.
Basically China is relaxing their policy to do American level lockdowns. I think it’s a great first step. Their previous COVID restrictions were simply inhumane. But with this change, most likely they are going to see a huge surge of COVID cases and a lot of deaths. But once the gigantic wave is over, they can live like the rest of the world. I believe China’s upcoming COVID wave will be quite similar to the COVID surge in India in Spring 2021. It was a few difficult months for India as the hospital systems were overwhelmed and many people died. But after that, even with a low vaccine rate, they were able to get back to normal. It’s still going to be very difficult but China has to bite the bullet like the rest of the world and have the COVID virus sweep through their population once . They can then get back to normal and the whole world could move on from the pandemic.