The Chinese authorities have announced that the country has decided to loosen its COVID-19 rules. Such a decision has been taken in an attempt to restart the declining economy.
In one of its most recent updates, the government of China said that mandatory Coronavirus testing has ended for many. This means that the majority of the population will no longer need to undergo testing, VisaGuide.World reports.
Euronews explains that while official data has shown that the number of new infection cases in the country has slightly fallen, the number did not include a large part of the population.
Nonetheless, the same has noted that despite the government making the decision that COVID-19 testing is no longer mandatory, long lines were still seen in front of the pharmacies to purchase self-test kits as well as medicines.
The Chinese government is planning to gradually introduce a Zero-Covid scheme, which would no longer require the citizens of the country to undergo strict rules. The government decided to take such a step following protests calling on President XI Jinping to hand in his resignation.
While the relaxation of the restrictions may be celebrated by some, media reports have shown that this has not benefited the economy of some parts of the country.
According to Reuters, cities that were already battling with severe Coronavirus outbreaks, such as Beijing, have registered a significant decrease in economic activity as soon as the mandatory testing requirement was dropped.
It is believed that such a thing started to happen since many businesses were forced to close as their infected workers had to quarantine at home. Many others who were not infected, decided to not go out, including here to their workplace, in order to avoid infection.
Commenting on the current situation in the country, a prominent Chinese epidemiologist, Zhong Nanshan, said that Omicron is highly transmissible and the same highlighted that one infected person could spread the virus variant to as many as 18 others.
In addition, Zhong stressed that the country is already numbering tens of thousands of people infected in several major cities.
Beijing is one of the cities which has reported a high number of infections over the weekend. Data have shown that a total of 1,661 new COVID infection cases were reported in Beijing on Saturday alone.
As for the overall figures, the World Health Organization figures show that China has reported a total of 149,682 new infection cases in the last seven days. Over the same period, the country also reported a total of 354 deaths.
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