BEIJING –
Several Chinese cities have either abolished or relaxed their COVID-19 testing regulations after China emerged from the region’s worst outbreak, with officials told not to cause too much of an outbreak. many disturbances to people’s lives while staying vigilant about this virus.
China, whose economy has been hit hard by various COVID restrictions during March-May, including the lockdown in Shanghai, faces high stakes to prevent another major outbreak.
It has asked major cities and ports of entry to increase testing capacity to ensure that they can detect the highly infectious variant of Omicron as soon as possible.
While cities like Beijing and Shanghai still have sporadic cases requiring citizens to be tested every few days, concern has grown that routine testing, if widely adopted across China, which could lead to a huge financial burden on local governments, which suffer from reduced revenue due to slower local economies and massive tax cuts to support businesses.
As of Thursday, mainland China had confirmed 225,434 symptomatic cases. Read full story
A national health official earlier this month clarified that infection-free areas should not require regular testing.
In Zhejiang province, east of Zhejiang province, the cities of Ningbo and Hangzhou, near Shanghai, said that from Saturday, the inspection regulations for entering public places and using transportation Public transport will require citizens to check once a week, instead of more strictly than once. -rule three days ago.
Zhejiang province reported fewer than 10 local infections in June.
In the eastern province of Anhui, which reported dozens of local cases in April and May but zero this month, the cities of Hefei and Huainan halted regular testing campaigns earlier in the week. this.
Dandong, a small town in northeastern China near North Korea, said on Friday it had lifted some COVID restrictions on cargo trucks, as it recently began easing a harsh ban. adopted at the end of April caused outrage on social networks.
(Reporting by Roxanne Liu and Ryan Woo; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
