China decides to drastically change measures related to coronavirus

China could announce 10 new COVID-19 mitigation measures as early as Wednesday, two people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters. These steps are expected to be in addition to the 20 measures announced back in November.

The management of the disease could be downgraded to a less stringent category B from the current highest infectious disease category A, sources said on condition of anonymity on Monday.

The sources added that Beijing is also considering whether to cut its anti-virus measures as early as January. This is reinforced by the fact that the current variants of the virus are not as dangerous as they used to say about it before. Analysts are predicting that China could roll back border controls and reopen its economy.

“The risk of an earlier but manageable exit has increased,” Hui Shan, chief China economist at Goldman Sachs, said on Monday, adding that the bank had been expecting such an opening since April. Other analysts expect a reopening in the second half of the year.

“While we too are hopeful, we warn that the road to reopening could be gradual, painful and bumpy,” Ting Lu, chief China economist at Nomura, wrote in a study on Monday, adding that the PRC did not appear to be well prepared for massive opening.

As the number of cases rises, putting pressure on China’s medical infrastructure, mild and asymptomatic cases should be isolated at home, Feng Zijian, former deputy head of the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told Chinese news site The Paper.

Those who have not completed basic immunizations or have not received booster shots should do so as soon as possible, especially the elderly and the most vulnerable, Feng said in an interview with a Shanghai government-backed news agency.

All this is a continuation of the rapid changes that began to actively emerge in China last week. Recall that Vice Premier Sun Chunlan said in the middle of the week that China was faced with a “new mission” as the pathogenicity of the Omicron virus weakened. She became the first high-ranking official to publicly acknowledge that the disease-causing ability of the new variant has decreased.

The expected new list of 10 items could also include a measure that would allow people who test positive for COVID to be limited to home quarantine, which will only affect the sick person. And this is a big step.

If this is taken into account, then the decision will be a key change in the “zero COVID” strategy. Surely there is no need to remind that when at least one infected person was detected, entire areas were previously blocked. People could sit at home for weeks, unable to leave the “dangerous” center.

A kind of “starting whistle” provoked a massive lifting of lockdowns, a reduction in the scale of PCR testing, and even an end to testing for the presence of a negative test for COVID in public places. New concessions began to operate from Monday.

For example, commuters in Beijing and at least 16 other cities have been allowed to board buses and subways for the first time in months without testing for the virus in the last 48 hours. Industrial hubs, including Guangzhou near Hong Kong, have reopened markets and businesses and lifted most movement restrictions while maintaining containment measures on areas with reported cases.

Hospitals in many provinces in China have announced that their nucleic acid testing services will no longer be available to the general public without medical necessity, seen as another step in a recent series of measures to streamline epidemic prevention and control policies. At a hospital in Shantou City, testing sites were moved off-site to prevent cross-contamination within the facility.

The adjustment, announced by local authorities, is seen as another step in China’s recent streamlining of COVID-19 prevention and control measures.

Since January 2020, China has classified COVID-19 as a category B infectious disease, but has managed it under category A protocols, which gives local authorities the power to quarantine patients as well as lockdown regions.

By the way, category A covers diseases such as bubonic plague and cholera, and category B includes SARS, AIDS and anthrax. Diseases such as influenza, leprosy, and mumps are categorized as C.

But more than 95% of cases in China are asymptomatic and mild. The number of deaths is very small. Under such circumstances, adhering to a category A strategy is not in line with science, media company Yicai said on Sunday, citing an unnamed expert. He also added that COVID-19 could be downgraded to category B or even category C.

However, such rapid changes have seriously frightened many citizens who perceive it all as a dream. A Beijing resident shared with Reuters her perception of the situation: her relatives came down with a fever and she had a sore throat, but the family did not want to be tested for fear of “being thrown into state quarantine.”

“All we want is to recover at home,” she told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

But measures are being taken, and this gives hope for a complete end to the application of the strict zero-COVID policy. However, experts are in no hurry to draw unambiguous conclusions. “China is not yet ready for a quick reopening,” Morgan Stanley economists said in a report released Monday. “We expect continued containment measures…Restrictions may still tighten dynamically in lower tier cities if hospital admissions rise sharply.”

It is worth noting that on Monday, the government reported 30,014 new cases, including 25,696 without symptoms. This is below last week’s daily high above 40,000, but still close to China’s all-time daily high.

However, everything that is happening in the state, which has already calmed down slightly after the protests, clearly indicates a revision of previous actions. And this is a really serious step towards the normalization of everyday life.